Aloha Shirt Friday

Fashion freedom in your 50s

Me wearing my brightest, most colorful aloha shirt.

Literally every time I wear this shirt people (okay other middle-aged guys mostly) stop me to tell me how much they love it!

I don’t wear aloha shirts every day (although at one point years ago that was my plan). But since they’re so comfortable and look so good, I probably should choose from that section of my closet much more often.

I lived in Hawaii three different times, for a total of 12 years of my life. When I retired from active duty back in 2013, I actually had a plan for my going away lunch where after I got my plaque, I took off my ABU top, put on an Aloha Shirt.

From my retirement going away lunch in 2013

So I guess we’ve established that I like aloha shirts. 😎

This particular loud and colorful one was a birthday gift from Kelly (my current significant other). She saw me lingering over the ad in my Facebook feed and made a mental note to search for it.

I’ll be honest, my first thought when seeing it was “awesome, my teenage daughters are going to be so embarrassed if I wear this when we all go out together 😂”

… and they are a little bit.

But in some other ways they’re used to it.

Among the many great things about being in my 50’s is that I don’t normally stress about fashion even a little bit. I wear what I like, and more importantly, what’s comfortable.

In my 20’s or 30’s, I might have thought twice about wearing a shirt like this, and it would have just lived a lonely existence in my closet.

The irony is …

I bet I would have gotten just as many compliments about it back then too.

So what are some of your “I don’t care what people might think” choices that you’ve embraced more as you’ve gotten older?

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