Skip to main content

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.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Do fat women have it worse than fat men?

I've always said that being fat is harder on women than it is on men.  Not only is there a lot more societal pressure to be stick thin rather than just healthy, which men don't seem to get, but it's a lot harder to be seen as physically attractive if you're even ten or fifteen pounds overweight. Anyway, it seems I'm not the only one thinking these things.  There's an article in the NYTimes today about overweight and obese women doing worse than men financially, an interesting angle on the effects of obesity, and in it they say: Why doesn’t body size affect men’s attainment as much as women’s? One explanation is that overweight girls are more stigmatized and isolated in high school compared with overweight boys. Other studies have shown that body size is one of the primary ways Americans judge female — but not male — attractiveness. We also know that the social stigma associated with obesity is strongest during adolescence. So perhaps teachers and pee...
4 comments
Read more

Can technology help me Lose It, or will I get lost in the numbers?

A few weeks ago I downloaded a new app for my iPhone called Lose It. It’s a calorie counter, but it also incorporates exercise, and the best part is that it’s pretty non-judgmental, as these things go. It lets you choose your own goal, and how fast you want to lost the weight, and then it just calculates the numbers for you. For example, I told it my current weight (I don’t want to talk about it) and that I wanted to lose thirty pounds (yes, hopelessly idealistic) in six months (hey, you gotta have some realism). And it told me my calorie allowance was roughly 2,100 per day. Way higher than I expected! Which is the other thing about this app: it makes me feel good about my eating habits! I have it tracking my nutrients as well, and besides the fact that I eat about twice as much sodium as I’m supposed to (yeah, yeah, whatever. Salt is gooooood), I’m pretty on-target with everything else. And I’ve been coming in under my calorie count pretty much every day. Even Easter! And I...
5 comments
Read more

Memo to medical professionals: the 'weight' issue

I have a bone to pick with the medical community, although it's probably well hidden beneath layers of fat. Yes, I'm talking about the way that doctors and medical professionals deal with weight. A few months ago, I asked my friend if she liked her 'lady doctor,' because I needed to go in for my annual check-up and I don't have a doctor in SF. Her response was something along the lines of "yeah, I like her because she doesn't talk a lot. I mean, except to tell me to lose weight." At this point, she shrugged, as if this is par for the course. For the record, this friend, while not slender, weighs less than I do. So I went online to Yelp (otherwise known as the bible), and I chose a doctor who gets rave reviews. He's a man, unfortunately, but I figured I should just suck it up and give him a try. And I liked him, mostly. The only thing he did that bothered me was that he talked a little too much. Oh yeah, and that he kept slipping in comment...
4 comments
Read more