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On clothing swaps and finally fitting in


“If you throw that in a hot wash and then tumble dry it, I bet it’ll tighten up a bit and fit you better.”  I try to contain my glee at the sight of one of my favorite skirts from college, a blue cotton floral number with a wide band that used to be snug on my hips, not-quite-falling-off T’s narrower frame.  Not only is it a pleasure to think that my friends might get some use out of some of the fifty or so items of clothing I’ve brought to the swap – most of them much-loved pieces that I wore over and over again until they were put away in storage by my mother and my style slowly outgrew them – but it is a surprise and an untold joy to see how many of my old clothes actually fit these girls.

My whole life, I’ve been significantly larger than all of my friends.  Even when I lost the weight, I remained a good two to four sizes above my largest girlfriend.  The first time I went to a clothing swap, years ago with my friend Courtney, I came away with two items: a stretchy knit dress (which was actually a favorite for a while) and a skirt of Courtney’s that never really fit my wide hips unless I tugged, hard and often – I brought that skirt back to the swap we did last night.

So I was fully expecting, as I rolled up to this swap with two bins chock-a-block full of tops and skirts and dresses (some of them with the tags still screaming the ridiculous price I’d paid years before in a moment of denial about my body shape), to be disappointed as the girls swam around in my massive clothes.  So to see T try things on, and not just dresses she could belt to fit but skirts, and to see some of them fit properly and the others at least stay up, was a shock.  And it wasn’t just her, either; Courtney looked fabulous in my Betsey Johnson winter formal dress from high school, and A rocked a dress I’d been wishing for years was just a tiny bit more forgiving in the hips, and S took my super cool (but too short for my torso) kimono top… It was actually a huge success!

I was so happy to see my clothes go to good homes – and the many many items that nobody could justify taking will go to Goodwill this weekend, so it’s not all bougies getting free stuff from bougies.  But most of all, and most selfishly, I was relieved and shocked and off-the-charts thrilled to fit in, literally, in a way I never felt I had.

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