I’ve decided to have a positive attitude if it goddamn kills me, hence my attempt to embrace of the chaos of having our apartment entirely encased in garbage bags until the bed bug extermination was complete.
Well, two days ago, what will hopefully be the final round of spraying was completed, and I have begun to unpack. This is me looking looking at the bright side:
“Yea! I now have the invaluable opportunity to go through all my clothing before I rehang it in my closet, to make sure it is deserving of such valuable New York real estate. Oh joy! I will try on any items that are in doubt; if something no longer fits or no longer suits, I will pass it off to deserving charities and/or to friends, making my bed bug calamity a win-win for everyone.”
I put my hair in a scrunchi, rolled up my sleeves, practiced my wide, gung-ho smile, and tore into the garbage bags.
And I stayed on the sunny side. I really did. I’m halfway through and my closet is paired down to the things I can happily wear and feel good in. Getting dressed will be so much more pleasant.
The whole endeavor, however, is not without some loss. After I dropped the third top that I wore within fairly recent memory reluctantly into the giveaway bag (these are now variously unacceptable due to bra bulge or between-the-boob button-gapping), I had a vision of a possible future that I realized that I didn’t want to be mine.
It’s not so much that the tops didn’t fit anymore (although that was part of it–they are cute and I wish they still did). It’s that I saw that I might be at the beginning of a trend I’d like to reverse, or at least halt. I am, I suspect, officially off fitted tops, and moving inexorably toward loose, flowy blouses. There is nothing truly tragic here, of course. It’s just another sign (along with the countless others I’ve written about here, here and here) of the end of an era.
The era is over because as a Formerly, I am simply not willing to do what it takes to lose the ten or so pounds that would put me back in tight tops. I don’t feel bad about this–quite the contrary. I have made a reasoned choice that I am comfortable with. I am 42, I feel great, am enormously healthy, have a busy, fulfilling life, and look good enough that I do not care to restrict my eating or exercise more than I already do for the sake of wearing belly shirts. That’s not enough of an enticement. Most days, the occasional angsty blog post to the contrary, it’s a huge relief to accept the body I have, as-is.
But it got me thinking about how women ultimately wind up in muumuus. There is a certain fashion-flab feedback loop that I am potentially embarking on, now that I’m a Formerly. It looks like this:
Your body changes through pregnancy, childbirth, and/or age—–> You start wearing clothing to deemphasize and/or accommodate these changes —–> You maybe stop noticing that your body is changing because you still look pretty good in these loose, flowy clothes (boho chic? sure!) [NOTE: THIS IS WHERE I AM ON THE LOOP]—–> your lifestyle changes a bit as you get older and have less time/desire/energy to care as much about how your body looks; your body changes a bit more [OR MAYBE EVEN HERE] —-> The clothes get looser still, and ever-so-slightly less groovy, because while there are cute plus size brands, you have fewer choices —-> The body changes more because it’s really hard to lose weight as you get older, particularly once you’ve gained a fair amount of it and have so many worthwhile demands on your time —-> You’re now having to wear things with elastic waists and really feeling lumpy —–> Maybe you stop looking in the mirror and/or weighing yourself —-> Maybe your body changes more —–>
Before you know it, you’re living in Muumuu City, Florida, with hundreds of women just like yourself, and you wonder how you got there. Here’s how: Your body influences you clothing choices, which have an impact on your body, which have an impact on your clothing choices, and so on until you have no choice at all but to shop at sporting goods stores for a two-person tent to wear to you grandson’s bar mitzvah. And I don’t think it’s fattist or sizeist or unkind to say that it would be better if this didn’t happen.
What’s the solution? I’m not sure. I know the answer is not to keep too-small clothes in your closet to torture yourself into watching your weight; this doesn’t work, in my experience. It only makes people feel like shit. Neither is the answer to not make nice clothes for bigger women, as some have written. That’s idiotic and mean, especially given how hard it is for most people to lose weight. And I’ve already ruled out dieting and exercising like a maniac, at least for myself.
I’m leaning toward the boring but effective moderation–staying the course, paying attention, not overdoing either food or exercise, and cleaning out my closet every so often. It’s working so far, fitted tops in the donation pile notwithstanding.
In the meanwhile, does anyone want a pair of size 11 gold leather pants? They’re really quite awesome, and while they still fit–sort of–I’m ready to let them go. They have a stain on the front, but nothing a long tunic wouldn’t hide.
I’m serious! First person to e-mail me gets them! Joel, they’d be capris on you, but oh so fetching! stephanie at stephaniedolgoff dot com.
Photo by brainblogger CC
January 6, 2010 at 10:24 am
Don’t even get me started on this topic!
January 6, 2010 at 10:39 am
Re: the between-the-boob button-gaping issue, it doesn’t mean the shirt is too small for you, it means that the buttons are not in proper placement. Take it to the tailor for re-positioning and you are saved! Or double sided clothing tape for a quick, cheap fix….
January 6, 2010 at 2:18 pm
Moderation is the only way. If you are fit and healthy and feeling well, you should use your considerable brain power to solve the world’s problems instead of wasting your energy on trying to get down a size or two! It’s the way The Man is trying to keep women down! (I’m a proud Wes graduate, yes I am!)
January 6, 2010 at 3:18 pm
Only a brave woman is able to be ruthless with her wardrobe. Way to go!!
Have you ever noticed that the truly remarkable, interesting, and loving women wear muumuus?
January 6, 2010 at 8:32 pm
Ok, this just blew my mind. I am so starting on this track. Feeling comfortable with the bit of weight I’ve kept on post-pregnancy, not really minding that I look 4 mos pregnant 2 yrs after giving birth cause I’ve just changed the way I dress. . . .
Thank you.
Despite my very active lifestyle, it is time to get serious and hit the gym.
January 9, 2010 at 9:36 am
My heart delights at being thought of, and seen for the free-stuff seeker that I am. I have nothing against wearing women’s clothing—especially FREE women’s clothing—and consider myself a disciple of Phil Oakey of the Human League. Nonetheless, I’ve gotten so much shit from Denise about wearing pants that are a bit too short that I think capris would just be a disaster on the teasing front. Mind you, it’d still be worth it if I weren’t flush with pants at the moment. I actually just went through my pants and put a few in the donation pile myself. Plus, there’s the whole not wanting to wear leather thing. But I really appreciate the offer.
Not to nitpick (feeble attempt at politeness while leading in to a nitpick), but I’m having trouble seeing how the phenomenon you describe is a feedback loop, as opposed to just a trend fatward. Weight/clothes fit is a product of diet, metabolism, and exercise. I get that you’re older now, which means that your metabolism is slower, and you have more demands on your time, and you exercise less. Seems like this would produce a relatively stable body type, at least until you get older or your lifestyle changes again.
The part about “The body changes more…” just seems like a natural aging process, rather than a response to an earlier step in the loop.
So the feedback part must be in the final part, about “Maybe you stop looking in the mirror and/or weighing yourself .” And so you eat more or exercise less because you care less, as you adjust to your new body?
Leave it to me to focus on the details of a post at the expense of the overall message, but sometimes it’s the only way I can understand things. This still seems like a “lack of feedback” loop rather than a feedback loop. If I’m getting it, in your younger days you would have looked at yourself in the mirror and decided to lose weight, but now you don’t. So how is this different from you just eating what you want and exercising at a level that seems right, without feeling compelled to look skinny? Where’s the feedback and the loop? I mean, it’s not like you look at yourself in the mirror and say “I’m going to go out and eat a pizza right now!”
I’m also reading this wondering what it says about agency. The most common message from society is “you make yourself into what you are. If you’re thin, it’s because you are virtuous and vigilant. If you are fat, it’s because you lack the willpower to eat right and exercise.” But we also know that people just have different bodies, and some are easy to keep thin, while others are not. And age affects this too. For the most part, your post seems consistent with the truth about weight, which is that it’s a combination of lifestyle and biology, part within our control and part out of our control. But I guess what bugs me about calling it a “feedback loop” makes it sound so out of control, and minimizes the role of choice. Being 10 pounds over fitted tops size does not make it inevitable that you will be in a moo-moo next year. You’d have to start eating more and exercising less.
Right now, you’re in a state of caring less about how your body looks than you did when you were younger. To be bound for Muu-Muu Land, you’d have to not care at all. Not saying you should or you shouldn’t but it doesn’t seem like where you are now, or where you’re likely to be any time soon. Which is to say, the end of your post sounds very different from a feedback loop.
January 15, 2010 at 4:31 pm
Oh my GOD. I had a similar experience with the bed bugs…It was so emotional, going through everything, and being forced to make decisions about clothing that I had kept in a “museum of past lives”–stuff that didnt fit anymore but was so vastly more interesting than what I am currently wearing. I literally felt like a part of me was dying as I tossed this stuff out, crying because I couldn’t put these things in the dryer (to kill the bed bugs) and I couldnt afford to dryclean everything to just throw it all back in the closet…to sit unworn…when the ordeal was over. So out it went–to the trash. And now I just have my middle aged clothes. Button down shirts that make me look asexual. I almost feel like my old self never existed. And I made peace with it and now I am focusing on going back to school and a career change, and it’s all ok. I must say hang in there with the bugs, it gets better. And you realize how many items you never really needed. Good luck and thank you for writing about it.