Okay, the sensitive topic for the day: fat is relative. It doesn't matter if you start out a size zero or a size ten, once your body is going in a direction you'd rather it didn't, you develop the same insecurities as all the other folks on the size spectrum.
I watched Cory put on weight during some of the med trials. Her middle thickened seemingly overnight, making her even more critical of her appearance. I tried to empathize with her situation, but what they say is true, you can't really understand someone until you've walked a day in their shoes. Enter, me, one hundred and three pounds for as long as I can remember. I was back in my jeans a week after Cory was born, and nine years later, I was sliding into them a month after Jacob joined us. I really had no idea what she was going through back then.
Thanks to my meds, I do now.
The first time I had to jump up and down to get into my pants was an a-ha moment for my previously skinny self...oh, this is what they're always talking about! How horrible!
As the fabric of my pants seemed to develop a personal vendetta against me, refusing to accommodate my new fuller behind, I began to hate them passionately. Getting dressed in the mornings had been one of my few remaining joys, and a good problem for my brain to latch onto that it could actually solve. Fashion was my bread and butter. I was discovering, as time went on, a sliding scale starting with the wiggle and snap dance and ending when the zipper refused to budge. Did I have a pot belly? Well, no. But suddenly (and I mean seemingly while I slept), there was more of me. What might not seem like a big change to someone else seemed to me, a girl whose weight had been static since basically 1989, unthinkable. In particular, there were these unfamiliar soft curvatures on each side that were apparently called hips. Crazy.
I spent at least one week at my workplace, diligently following the dress code, but striding around the office with a floaty blouse hanging over my fly, which was unbuttoned and unzipped, the entire day. No one suspected a thing. Or if they did, theygenerously kept it to themselves.
Before anyone starts to throw rocks at me for complaining about an extra few pounds which most say looks great, I want to remind you of what Dr. Z said, which is so, so true. We do not see ourselves accurately, and a lot of that has to do with the state your brain is in on any given day. I know this to be true. I watched Cory do it constantly, and I have now experienced it for myself. On good days, I will check myself out in the full length mirror and realize I probably rock a bikini better now than I ever have, which is not too shabby for 39.
On the bad days, I miss my hipbones. I miss them. I feel like someone else has taken over my body, making changes without my consent. I don't feel like me. Having never really experienced that before - except when pregnant- I can now say it is a scary and uncomfortable feeling.
Needing my body's cooperation to close my pants in the morning is stressful, and the very worst way to the start the day. As I complained to my friend, Angie, about this, she hid a giggle behind her hand, and made serious her expression as she queried, "Miss Nicole, haven't you ever had skinny pants, so-so pants, and fat day pants?"
Horrified, I stared at her. What in the hell is she talking about?
The day we left for Florida, I stopped by Target to surrender to my new body shape by buying a pair of shorts that I could fit into. Angie had assured me that if I didn't buy more than say 2 pair, I was not taking up residence in the new size, but merely stopping by for a visit. I picked up a couple of candidates listening to our other friend assure me this was completely normal, and by no way meant defeat.
On the way back to the dressing room, I came up with the single most cost-effective way of accommodating all these different days- skinny, medium, fat, mortifying. I snatched up a pair of shorts and ran triumphantly back to the junior's section to find them, waving the pair of stretch panel maternity jean shorts. They took one look at them, and just shook their heads. I slunk back to hang them on the rack. It seemed like a brilliant idea to me, but I had a feeling they were over there calling me some choice names.
In the dressing room, I put those shorts- a size up from my usual- on and snapped them with ease. I turned around and surveyed my rear in the mirror.
What was this? Now, that was a hot ass.
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