You don't move me anymore
So I was out at a mall the other day. I'm not much of a shopper (I'd rather be at the movies or the zoo, or palms pressed against the glass at the aquarium) but I do like to walk around and look at things. I have my favorite places to browse around in, some big and some small, where sometimes I buy things and sometimes I don't. Making mental checklists of stuff I'd like to get maybe next time, maybe when it's on sale, maybe if I remember to come back at all. It doesn't really matter. Like I said, I'm not much of a shopper.
And so I'm wandering around the mall with my hands in my pockets, waiting up for somebody I'm supposed to be meeting with. I'm killing time, store to store, hitting all the usual suspects on slow a Friday afternoon. Everywhere I go, I make the trek to the back to the store, the corner marked Plus Size. I'm used to it. For most of my adolescence and adult life I was trained by shops and labels to think of myself in a very narrowly defined set of terms. Round. Curvy. Heavy-set. Thick. Big. Stocky. Those were the positive terms. Everybody else just said Fat. Whatever. It's an ugly and flawed and imperfect system. I'm operating inside of it, just trying to make do.
Trained to shop in my corner of the store, I found myself immediately drawn to the large printed blouses and elastic-waist jeans of the Plus Size section. When I got there this time, I forgot that nothing fit me anymore. Leafing through the racks of clothes that used to fit me, looking over labels that used to describe me as Curvy or Heavy or Thick, everything was too big. Then when I was standing in an Old Navy (which I kind of dislike as a rule, but they were having a sale and like I said, I was killing time) it dawned on me that the Size 14 jeans and the Size 12 capris, well, that was what fit me now. Held up to my waist, these hitherto "skinny people" sizes covered me in all the right ways. Nothing was hanging out, nothing needed to be covered up, layered over for fear of the dreaded muffin-top, the embarrassing tightness that used to drive me insane when shopping for pants to fit me.
For the first time that I could remember, I fit into Size Medium tops, Size 12 (maybe 16, if the designer was making them for Olympic runners and super-models) jeans. I was standing there in the middle of the store, and it finally occurred to me that Plus Size no longer applied. So who — or what — does that make me now? I've been trained to think of myself as Fat, by everyone from svelte-thin fashionista television show hosts to my crappy friends growing up, who expected me to stay around as the Fat Friend so they had someone to compare themselves to when they had a bad day. And while I certainly don't put much stock into the words of pompous fashion gurus or abusive people whose relationships I've taken steps to sever for good, it's still a shock to the system.
Yes, I'm still curvy. I have big hips that won't go away no matter how much weight I lose. I have strong legs from walking that will never be long and slender, no matter how much I wish and hope. My butt is about as small as it's ever going to get given my proportions, and won't be fitting on any nickles anytime soon. But not having the Plus Size banner to hang over myself, I feel unsure. It was safe being Plus Size. I felt a sense of solidarity with Plus Size women, whether on a Plus Sized fashion blog or just sharing a nod and a smile with another girl shopping in my section, because it felt like a comfortable space. We made it a comfortable space.
This isn't an Us v. Them thing. Skinny v. Fat. That kind of thinking doesn't help anybody. No matter how much weight I lose, no matter what size I end up as, I'll still be me. Just a smaller version of me. I'll still follow blogs and communities dedicated to body image issues and Plus Size fashion and models. I don't regret losing the weight, because I am happier and healthier than I was before, and that's the only reason I did it. For myself, and nobody else.
I just have to get used to it, one day, one pair of jeans at a time.
