The Plaid Dress

A few weeks ago, on a whim while shopping at a big box store, I bought a dress in a size 16/18 without trying it on because:
a) I thought it was cute and actually kind of trendy (not that I'd necessarily know).
b) I wanted to see if I could fit into it, and figured if I didn't now, I would eventually.
c) It was on sale for $9. People.

And now I have the perfect opportunity to wear it, since we're heading into a sun-filled San Francisco park tomorrow for a birthday party.

Except I'm not sure I can bring myself to do it.

Here's the thing: the dress? It fits. It's a little tight around the boobs (whatever, this will be the case no matter what size I am, I know this from experience), but it's got buttons all the way down, so I can just undo the top ones and wear a tank top under it.

The dress is red plaid (on-trend, right? plaids?) and a-lined, and cinched at the waist, all of which is good for my figure.

But wearing a dress that fits is weird.

For one thing, for the last several years, I've tended to wear loose-fitting everything. Where's my waist? Who knows! (Having giant boobs has its advantages when trying to disguise where -- and how large -- one's waist actually is.)

For another thing, fashion for the plus-sized, as I've discussed 90 billion times, is not like fashion for the rest of the world. You have a handful of stores to choose from, and within them, your goal is to find the thing that will make you look the least heinous.

Plus-sized clothing is about hiding the bad more than it's about accentuating the good. Sad but true.

So but back to the point.  I have this dress. It's just a dress. Yes, it's large (I'm just not quite a 14 yet, bitches), but it's not a plus-size-specific design. It's just a large size of a dress that is made for "normal-sized" people. Which means it's not designed to hide my body, it's just designed to look like a dress. On any body.

And so, when I wear it, I look like my size. And that's kind of scary.

Is this making any sense?

Of course, I always look my size. I know I'm not fooling anyone by wearing "flattering" tent-like outfits. But the thing with the bigger clothes is that I'm just kind of hiding the goods altogether. When you can't see where my waist is, you know it's there, you know it's not small, but you don't quite know how not-small it is.

Whereas in this dress, you do. You see. Oh, her waist is THERE. And it's precisely THAT not-small.

So it's hard. The more weight I lose, the more likely I am to wear form-fitting-ish clothing. Which in some ways means that the more weight I lose the bigger I'm willing to look. (At least while I'm in transition.)

Please tell me I'm making some sense.

Wearing this red plaid dress means owning my curvy, bubbly, size 16-ish body. It means full-out acknowledging that I am the size that I am, in a way that hiding in bigger clothes doesn't.

The challenge is that I'm tired of hiding my body in bigger clothes -- I'm ready to reveal my thinner, healthier body. Except uh, I don't HAVE my thinner, healthier body yet. I'm still working on it.

So this stupid dress is like, an emblem of how far I've come and of how far I still have to go. I want to wear it because of the former; I'm afraid to wear it because of the latter.

Weight loss is so much fun.


By the way, I'm down over 30 pounds now(!), thanks to Medifast, who is awesomely sponsoring me. As a reminder, you can get $50 off an order of $275 by using the code SHEWALKS...but the code expires THIS MONDAY, May 31.