madermouse's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- June 1, 2001 I've been shopping in fat-lady stores since my mid-teens, and wearing womens sizes for nearly as long as I can remember. Living in a tiny town in Wyoming limited me to scavenge for clothes like a vulture circling its prey. My personal taste was simply nonexistent. Never mind the color, the style, the pattern, I just zoned in on anything that looked big enough, and then went in for the kill. If it wasn't for the Wal-Mart Misses department, which was my mainstay, the "meat & potatoes' of my wardrobe diet, I don't know what I would've done. I'll never forget my first trip to a big city Lane Bryant store. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven! A whole store with sizes going up to size 26-28 with real colors and a little bit of style too! I spent $600 and came back to school the next year feeling like a million bucks. That is, of course, until the comments of other teenagers shrunk me back down to size. "Why do you always wear stretch pants instead of jeans?" I remember a boy asking me...as if he didn't know why. A few weeks later a friend remarked, "Your clothes look so adult, so grown-up!". Well, any fat person knows, that Fat lady clothes = Old lady style, and that's just the way it goes. It seems most clothes designers don't expect a 16 year old to weigh 200lbs. Why should they? After all it is unnatural and abhorrent and totally inappropriate, right?
Years later I moved to a big city and discovered a handful of stores which catered to the big and beautiful women of this world, and I was totally delighted. The credit applications flew from my wrists like a paperboy on a 4am route. With credit lines extending as far as the eye could see and cards lining my bulging wallet, the shopping began. A world of fine fabrics, stylish double-wide shoes, and even lingerie played out before me. I was completely enveloped, and completely in debt. The first year in the city I must've spent three thousand dollars or more on clothes, while working a crappy low-paying job. But I finally felt like a normal, real person when shopping. It was exhilarating.
The years passed and my spending spree continued, although I somehow managed to pay off a majority of my credit card debt over time. I used clothes as my armor, my protection against the stereotypes that plague most fat people. Fat and lazy? I compensated by working harder, faster, by learning quicker than everyone else around me. Fat and ugly? Not me! I wore fabulous high dollar fashions to a menial job, bought the expensive shampoo & face creams, and played up my assets like my full breasts and rosy cheeks. Each day brought the challenge of finding another suit of armor to sustain the image I thought I had created for myself. I judged my outfit, and my esteem, according to how many compliments I received that day. An outfit receiving no compliments often ended up in the back of my closet, or promptly given away. There seemed no end to my closet which my husband lovingly referred to as AThe Black Hole@. I could go for months without wearing the same outfit twice, and even go for 6 weeks without doing a load of laundry! Think about it - that's at least 45 pairs of underwear! Every couple of months I'd load up a trash bag of clothes and give them to friends, most of whom couldn't believe it when they'd find blouses with the price tag still on them. Then I'd just head to the nearest Avenue or Lane Bryant, and find something else to buy. Simple.
Only it seemed that each time I'd go I'd find less & less that fit me well. Every shirt I tried on was so short that my stomach peeked out of the bottom, or my arms swelled at the seams. The pants suddenly showed each dimple and bulge with the precision of a magnifying glass, amplifying my endomorphic butt to eye-sore levels! I couldn't find anything to fit me. I was panicked, surveying the store for stretchy fabrics and forgiving knits. I strained my eyes for one single item that I could fit into. Then it hit me, I had grown out of the largest size at Lane Bryant. My heart pounded in my ears with the force of a thousand drums. I left the mall humiliated, angry, and crushed, but I didn't give up yet.
My next stop was The Avenue, a fat-lady store which carried sizes up to the rare 30-32. I bounded into the store with a mission - to find something that fit. I frantically searched the racks, size by size, until the scarce 30-32 revealed itself to me in the form of a dress, a sweater, and a jacket. Who cared that I didn=t even like the color chartreuse or the gawdy beadwork on the sweater, that wasn=t the point. I fervently made my purchase, threw the bag in the trunk, and headed home, mission accomplished. My reward was a drive through Taco Bell, where I sat in the empty parking lot and consumed enough food for 10 people.
Eventually I grew out of the largest size at The Avenue too. The above scenario played itself over and over again until it became nauseatingly predictable. My closet started looking a bit sparse, because although I had been giving trash bags of clothes away that no longer fit, it was increasingly difficult to replace them. I resorted to the catalogs, specializing in "Super-sized" women and sizes up to 6X. I'd spend a fortune on one or two dresses, and then wear them until they were threadbare. I'd buy 100% cotton tops and stretch them while they were wet from the washer to try and cover my hanging stomach. But after awhile, even that didn't work. I had to accept the fact that people could see my stomach hanging out from my shirts, no matter how hard I tried to hide it.
Then, last November, I had my epiphany moment. I started to change my life. I steered clear of the fat lady stores - knowing I couldn't find anything there anyway. I started to exercise, I started to eat differently, I began to grow internally instead of externally for a change. I started to do the impossible - I lost weight.
Last month, after about 40 pounds, I noticed my boobs were basically swimming in my bras. Ya, nice visual, I know...But I realized it was time to head back to the dreaded Fat Lady Store. I walked in, feeling a little out of my element. (if you can believe that) I found a few bras, 4 inches smaller in size, and headed to the counter. And then something happened. I saw a woman. She looked flushed, frantic. Her eyes darted wildly around the store as she glanced in the direction of the knit pants. Her hands flew in a frenzy as she desperately fingered price tags, searching for a bigger size. Anguish overcame her face and she looked across the room. Our eyes met. She had caught me staring at her. She knew that I knew what she was doing.. Humiliation swept over her, and she literally ran out of the store clutching her purse tightly. I wanted to run after her. I wanted to cry out "Its okay!! I've been there!". I wanted to shoulder her and comfort her and tell her that I understood. I wanted to give her hope that she, too, could change, that its NOT impossible. I watched her car as it tore out of the parking lot with whistling tires and smoke. She was gone. She'd never understand that I saw myself in her.
Still dazed, I took my bras up to the counter where the sales girl recognized me. "Wow! You haven't been here in ages! You look great!" she said. I replied with a quiet "thanks", still feeling a knot in the pit of my stomach over what just happened. She interrupted my thoughts with, Is this all you're buying? I told her that I was losing weight and I hoped never to have to buy the largest size again. "Oh, how cute. I've said that a hundred times too. I've lost the same 70 pounds over and over again.- You'll gain it back" the stupidbitch sales lady replied. I paid the bill without one word, gathered my bag and drove home. So that was it, huh. EVERYONE really just gains it all back? I know the statistics are stacked against me. I read the web journals where people stop writing after 30 or 40 pounds and you never hear from them again. Hell, I even have a friend who's had the gastric bypass surgery TWICE and still weighs over 300lbs. Could it really be true? Am I going to fail too? My mind drifted back to the Fat Lady Store, to the image of that woman. Oh, how I felt her pain...how I've lived it. My heart ached at the memories of my old self desperate to find something that would fit. I just couldn't ever go back to that. I can't. I won't. I refuse to. Never again. NEVER I made up my mind then and there. I don't think I've ever felt so certain about anything in my life before. I am transforming into a butterfly. I am shedding my old skin, layer by layer. I'm discarding old habits, old ways of being, useless coping skills, and tearing down walls of defense mechanisms which I meticulously built over the years. I am listening to my body for the first time in my life. I will fly away on wings that I created myself. They will take me to a new existence where Fat Lady Stores abound - but I don't have to shop there. 10:34 a.m. - June 1, 2001 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
||||||
|
||||||