If movies are to be believed, there are some people out there – men and women both! – who actually enjoy waking up in the morning, throwing the doors of their closets open with a flourish, and putting together an outfit in which they will tackle their day with confidence.

In the movie of my life, that scene would go very differently.

It’s not so much that “I’m not a morning person.” That’s just a lazy characterization, reducing many variables down into one dismissive phrase. I kind of like mornings although I admit that my mind is not at peak function until I’ve had a good hour or two of easing into things.

No, it’s not mornings that are the nightmare. I just really don’t like getting dressed in the morning. My job is so erratic that one moment I might be in a meeting with high-level donors and the next I’ll be tramping around in the muddy woods. Cool job, bad for deciding what to wear, especially when my mind is still yawning and stretching. Combine that with a very ambivalent attitude towards my body, and the fact that I never seem to have items that go together, I can never find socks that match, and I’m always behind on laundry makes this truly one of the most painful 15 minutes of each and every day.

Some interpretations of the Lewis Caroll books would have you believe that Alice is searching desperately through wonderland for someone who will just see her for who she is, for someone to pay attention – really and truly pay attention – to her. Although these are the actions of a child, can any of us honestly say we’re not, on some level, still trying to do that too? At its heart isn’t that moment in the morning where we attempt to put together an outfit that will simultaneously make us feel secure AND which will show others who we are the ultimate manifestation of Alice’s yearning?

“I don’t know what to wear” or “I don’t have anything to wear” in some ways mean:

I don’t know who I am today;

I don’t think any of these clothes I have will help people see the best of me;

This same old, same old stuff is not going to garner the attention (or respect) that I so badly need.

That’s where the Cheshire Cat comes in (for Alice and for us).

To get through what can sometimes end up a swirling vortex of indecision and self-loathing, sucking me down into the depths despair, I just need to visualize my own Cheshire Cat into being.

Remember how the Cheshire Cat was always there when Alice was at her most confused? He acted as guide, sage, and sometimes just someone for Alice to bounce some thoughts off of. He might have been cryptic, but he didn’t judge. He is the consummate outsider – hover on the fringes, providing some explanations, but never threatened by the action, never actually within the same circumstances (or following the same rules) as everyone else. This outside status allows for him to be observant and objective. Who else could better serve as the necessary morning combination of therapist and fashion consultant?

Just looking in the mirror, I imagine his floating head appearing behind me (smile first, of course).
“Would you please tell me what I ought to wear?” I would ask the grinning feline.

“That depends a good deal on what you want to look like.” he replies.

“I don’t much care — ” I continue.

“Then it doesn’t matter what you wear!” says the cat.

The clarity of thought and devotion to logic of the Cheshire Cat would be just the thing to snap me out of my early morning panic. His presence is enough to keep me on the straight and narrow and not allow me to descend too far into self-imposed crazy — for despite his claims of madness, he knows how to help. Just like with Alice, I can imagine him taking the time to listen to me and my concerns, then providing the answers needed to navigate the rules and expectations of a world I am still learning.

In fact, it is no coincidence that Alice converses with the Cat about madness. Going through life feeling misunderstood, invisible, or misrepresented is what leads to the indecision, the doubt, the voices in the head. To wake up in the morning and find that you don’t know any more who you are supposed to be, well, who wouldn’t start to go mad?

The Cheshire Cat suffers no fools and deals no bullshit. (Remember his scene where the king suggests the cat kiss his hand? His answer: “I’d rather not.” Boom!). He would have no problem stamping out the whirling, swirling, bitchy voices in my head squealing: “That’s ugly!” “Look at that tire around your middle!” “Too dorky” “Too baggy” “Too hippy-dippy” …  He has a calm, cool manner which is never ruffled, providing the perfect anecdote to my frantic, closet-ruffling, clothes-flinging, under-the-breath-swearing self.

This conversation between Alice and the Cat leads to perhaps his most useful advice of all for those of us frozen with uncertainty before our mirrors in the morning:

“Alice: But I don’t want to go among mad people.
The Cat: Oh, you can’t help that. We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.
Alice: How do you know I’m mad?
The Cat: You must be. Or you wouldn’t have come here.”

For truly, we must remember that, movie characters aside, we’re all mad in these same ways at some point in our lives. We all face times when we need acknowledgement that doesn’t come. And once in a while, our desires to prove that we are not crazy cause us to fall down the rabbit hole into a world we are nothing but crazy.

In other words, we’re all mad here, so what does it matter what we wear?