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Hi. So as you can see, I'm back. Brief plot summary: Thursday night I saw "Saving Private Ryan" -it was good, but we ended up taking Henry and Rene and one of Rene's friends and they were really annoying... my dad said next time we take them to a movie we have to find out how much Rene's slept first. She was getting close to psychotic.
Friday morning we left for my Gramma's house... I slept in the car, mostly, and we got there around 4pm, I think. Then we took my Gramma to Value City and Target, took her home, and then me and my dad went back out to the Lion's Twilight Sale. All told, I got some night shirts, a pair of drawstring cargo jean things, and the best flannel robe. Saturday we went to the little mall, I got some sweaters (more on this later) and then we went back to my Gramma's house to see some relatives who were coming over for dinner. Sunday we went to the big mall. Shopped some. Then went back to Gramma's house and did nothing for a while until the Music Under the Stars concert at the zoo. It's this very American thing where they put on this free concert and people sit on these uncomfortable metal benches and stand to sing the national anthem. It was cool. Monday we left, and ended up going to Cedar Point, which is this big amusement park. We hadn't been planning on going, it was my mom's doing. She decided on the way out that it had been too long since "just the three of us" went and that "it'd be a nice thing to do before you go away" ...I think she was gettin' all mushy about me leaving, really. So we went. We didn't stay long enough for it to be worth all that money, but it was fun anyway. And that's it. Today's Tuesday. My mom had the day off and we drove each other nuts, and then I went to my class and got the second test back- it was the same as the first one, a 97. That would bring us to now. End of brief plot summary. Here's where I attempt to make one of those rare connections between my brain and my fingers where something gets out that makes me see things differently and realize that's the way they were all along. Or whatever. So at the "little mall" (i'm trying to keep specific names and such outta here. So it was the little mall.) the Deb store ...ummm... it's this east-coast store, I think, that carries clothes straight out of Seventeen for people who are the size of Calista Flockhart. There's one in our mall here that I don't even bother going into anymore, because it depresses me to see all those teeny clothes. Anyway, we were walking past the one in the Little Mall and I was gonna go right by when I saw this sign that said "It's an attitude, not a size" and I was thinking "What the hell are they talking about? Of course it's a size!" when I stopped and read further and it said "Plus Sizes, 14-26" or something like that. So of course I went in. And it turns out they've turned more than half of the store into a plus size place that sells the same clothes only bigger. I was very happy. :-) See, I'm not that big, in my opinion. I am usually a size 16. I shop at Old Navy, mostly, and I can fit fairly easily into their size 14 jeans, but they're not as comfy, so I buy size 16. And it's been a while since I tried on dresses, but I do know I'm bigger than a size 16 in dresses. There's a New Age store in Buffalo that I go to occasionally and they have this wall full of Lilith Fair-esque dresses that all say "one size fits all" and I have yet to find one there that my chest can fit into, let alone fit into comfortably. I have gigantic breasts, and they drive me insane sometimes, (i'd tell you exactly how gigantic if I knew, but I've never tried on a bra that fit like it was supposed to. But I've also never tried on one that was too big....) but anyway I've worked really hard at it and most of the time my body doesn't bother me. Sometimes I even like it. And that is a huge accomplishment for me. And then I go shopping for clothes. And it's all ruined. I've finally got over my phobia of plus size stores. I don't know how it happened, or why, really. Just one time I was looking for clothes I insisted on trying on everything in this one junior shop, and buying whatever came the closest to fitting, and the next time I walked past that store and into the plus size shop and searched for something that didn't look like a tent. (The problem with size 16 is that occasionally it can be found with the regular sizes, and occasionally it can be found with the plus sizes, but usually it seems to be somewhere in between. As if I don't even exist.) When I got into that Phi Theta Kappa honor society thingy they had a luncheon for everybody who got in and on the invitation it said "this is a formal affair, please dress appropriately." I didn't have any dresses that fit, and I did want to go, so I started shopping. I shopped and shopped and shopped and found absolutely nothing. And then it was the weekend before and me and my dad went to the warren mall (a ways out of town) and I went into a store and bought a dress and a skirt, both of which almost fit, and I bought them simply because they were the only things I'd tried on that came close. And I got them home, and my mom saw them and decided we had to go back, because I either needed something to go on top of the dress or a shirt to go with the skirt. So we went back, and Henry and Rene ended up coming along, and we went back to that very same store, and everything I tried on looked terrible, and a lot of it I couldn't even get on and I was trying and trying but I ended up standing there, in that little square dressing room, crying hysterically and trying my best not to make any noise so no one would know. It was awful. I couldn't stop crying and I couldn't do anything about it. But of course my mom knew what was going on. She always does, which is only occasionally a good thing. She sent Henry and Rene to order pizza for lunch, and came in and got me out of there. I think that's what happened, between the time I bought whatever fit, and the time I went in the plus size store. But there's this psychological thing that goes on in admitting you don't fit into those little clothes. I mean, everyone knows and most people will even admit that girls are taught their whole lives that skinny=beautiful, and there are no exceptions. When I was in sixth grade, I got the chicken pox. I was really sick, and I spent three weeks lying on the couch, living off of rainbow sherbert. Naturally, when I got better, I had lost weight. And everybody told me I had lost weight and I looked good. Everybody. My babysitter (who was really just this neighbor I hung out with after school.) and my relatives and people at school... everybody. And I stood in front of the mirror and I looked and looked, but I didn't see any difference. And the more I looked, the more I thought I looked fat. And I thought, if this is what I look like now, what did I look like before? ...and I stopped eating. There were days I didn't eat anything, and days I just ate less, and days I forgot and ate like I used to. But I never forgot. How I made it to 11 without caring is beyond me. But I did, and I felt so stupid when I finally realized that everybody else had started caring before me, and to them I was just the fat girl who wore overalls every single day. It took so much work to get over that. When I was in eighth grade, and in the middle of my major depression, I kept tabs of every calorie I ate (5 for that stick of gum, 3 for 1/2 of a piece of hard candy, 10 for a saltine...) and I rounded everything up. Then I kept a diary right next to it where I wrote down the calories for all the exercise I did. (30 for those sit ups, 25 for those push ups...) and I wouldn't go to sleep until the exercise column added up to more than the food column. The thing is, it wasn't a compulsion. It's not like I was anorexic or bulemic. What I was was a slightly chubby little girl who had read books and magazines and had been told in a million different ways that she should care. So I did. I didn't eat because that's what I thought I was supposed to do. That's what teenage girls do, right? That's what they did in all those books, and on tv shows.... and so I did it too. But it wasn't a problem to stop. I didn't mind one bit. And because of that everyone thought I was faking, pretending to be anorexic to get attention. But I wasn't. I'm not entirely sure what I was doing, but I wasn't faking.... I think I was just trying to be normal. And I think that's a statement about our society, that a thirteen year old girl would think it's normal to starve herself. Of course, all my friends were doing it too, so really, in a way, it was normal.... Anyway. So just going into the plus size section of that deb shoppe showed I've come a long way. And I got two sweaters and a dress. And every dress I tried on was a 1x or larger and every single one fit me. It was the most amazing experience, to pick a dress I actually liked (Well, I don't really like any dresses, but the one I like the most...) instead of just picking the one that pinched the least. I picked a Sporty Spice dress, one that actually had sleeves (most of the deb shoppe's dresses don't, and I can't bring myself to shave and I can't bring myself to wear a sleeveless dress without shaving.) It's a 2x, and really roomy, and it's the most comfortable dress I've ever owned. It doesn't pull, and the buttons don't bunch, and it doesn't cling around my stomach, and it's stretchy material, and all my other stretchy materials stretch so much around my chest that you can see the white of my bra. And it doesn't do any of that stuff. None of it. I hate dresses, but as they go, this is a good one. And now, I'm going to go watch Field Of Dreams with Rene, and see if we can spot Matt Damon (supposedly he was an extra) if anybody knows where he is, e-mail me. I'll post it if we find him. |