Shoved to Them
We’re now on day 11 of no washer. The part we need got stuck somewhere in Illinois thanks to the Polar Vortex. I’m not sure when it’s going to be fixed, but I’m beginning to think we’re going to have to wait until Spring. Every time I start to think that we should just bag it all and get a new one, the tracking number on the part shows that it’s moving again and I start to hope.
Somewhere around day 9, I realized that there is a serious clothing inequality in our house. I had run out to buy undies for myself on day 5 because I was out of clean ones. (I have more than 5. I wear two a day – one to the gym and then I change to clean skivvies for the rest of the day.) I was scrambling through the clothes in my drawers in an attempt to find something to wear. Five days and I was hurting for wardrobe options. On day 9, the 6 year old ran out of jeans. He was out of long pants after a week and a half, but the rest of the family was still fine.
There’s no one to blame for this other than me. I’m the person who buys clothes for everyone. It might be more honest to say that I’m the person who buys clothes for everyone else. Clearly I’m not buying clothes for me.
For a long while, I didn’t buy clothes because I hated the way that my body looked in them. I looked at the lumps and bumps of the post-seven babies me and hated everything I tried on…so I bought nothing.
Last February, my doctor gave me some bad news – I needed surgery – there was a possibility that losing weight and strengthening my muscles would correct the problems I was having. It was a long shot, but it was an option. It was an option I eagerly embraced. The idea of surgery freaks me out, and I have always loved exercise even when I didn’t do it.
My doctor’s visit last month confirmed my hopes – all my work had convinced my body to heal itself without going under the knife. As a bonus, I now had learned to love my body again. It’s strong, and most of the lumps I see are muscles. I’m strong.
I have an entire drawer full of clothes for the gym, because it’s where I feel comfortable with myself. Clothes for everywhere else? I’m not so good there. I could see how I looked in the clothes I had, and it still wasn’t right. I just looked and felt awkward. In yoga pants and a tank top, I feel amazing….but jeans and a t-shirt? Not so much.
Which is why I kept taking care of the rest of my family and studiously ignoring my own empty dresser. The past week and a half have brought my self-neglect into sharp focus.
I sucked it up a couple days ago and went shopping. I took my teenage daughter because she has better clothes sense than I do. She made me try things on! Can you imagine?
I was shocked.
I grabbed the sizes (12-ish) that I normally buy and tried them on. They looked as awkward as ever. She shook her head and started grabbing things off the rack and shoving them at me. She insisted that I ignore the labels and try them on. They were a size 8 and they fit.
No wonder the old stuff looked bad. My body was no longer lumpy, but I was wearing what was, on the body I now have, a big shapeless sack. Not only did I not have enough clothing, but what I had were the wrong size. I would never have let this happen to anyone else in the family but me.
Which leads me to one of my New Year’s resolutions – I resolve to never again get to this place. I deserve to be at least as well dressed as my worst dressed child.
So I did what any other woman would do….I bought the pair of jeans that made my a** look great, picked up a cute top, scheduled a haircut, and then started looking at Easter dresses for the girls online.
What? I can’t change everything in just one day.
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