Shopping as a Big Girl

I've talked about dating as a big girl and buying support garments as a big girl but lets discuss the never ending frustration of shopping for everyday clothes as someone who doesn't fit into the standard 0-12 sizes most stores offer. I don't use the term Big Girl in a derogatory manor, in fact I say it with a great deal of affection. I was a big girl for a very long time, I was in denial about my size for years, but there was always one occasion when I couldn't pretend my ass hadn't exploded into its own zip code, when I went shopping.

I had the joy of falling into two categories, petite and plus-sized. Oh the irony. We wee minions of the world (I couldn't resist sneaking wee wee into a post) who fall under 5'3" get to shop in a section called "petite" where the arms have been hacked off and hems shortened. The fun thing about being 5'1" and over 200 pounds is your waist circumference and your height in inches get a little too close for comfort. You stop buying clothing and instead buy tubes of fabric and most likely in black, black tubes of fabric are slimming.

I remember the first time I had to venture beyond the doors of a regular store into the plus-size section. I was mortified. All of the clothes had flowery patters, flowing fabric, tapered legs! It's as though the world was conspiring against us plus-sized girls to look like giant pastel ice cream cones. Unacceptable! So I turned around and left. Then I discovered Old Navy...and their generous sizing strategy. They carry sizes up to 16 in jeans which I could squeeze into on a good day, but they also sold all of their regular clothes up to extra large, a roomy extra large if you compared it to other stores. So I draped myself in inexpensive finds, replaced my too small jeans every few months as I burned through the inseams with the chaffing of my thighs and ignored the fact that I had gotten to a size where I refused to be seen in a plus-size store (holding onto vanity with a death grip) and had limited my shopping to one store and yet refused to acknowledge I might need to lose some weight.

Short of Wile E. Coyote dropping an anvil on my head I was in serious denial. It wasn't until I needed a dress for a special occasion that I had to bite the proverbial bullet and venture beyond Old Navy into a store that sold more than cotton sun dresses. I headed over to Addition Elle, the worst name ever, and perused the racks of dresses for women of my girth. Oh the selection was appalling, muumuus, caftans, I think I even saw a satin bathrobe trying to pawn itself off as a cocktail dress. With teary eyes I bought a black flowing dress which hide all the bumps and bulges and vowed never to put myself in that position again. I hated that dress, I hated everything it represented, the hours upon hours spent laying on the couch eating, the thousands of times I promised myself I'd lose weight to only give up a few hours later, the lies I told to get out of social events because I didn't have anything to wear. That cheap black polyester dress was the embodiment of how I felt everyday when I looked in the mirror and quickly choked down. Failure.

I wore that dress once, I don't even remember what I did with it after. I do know that buying that dress was a turning point for me. I felt a mind shift like I hadn't before, its wasn't about the clothing and feeling vain it was about feeling like I wasn't included in general society, that I wasn't good enough, that I got less than everyone else, the cast offs because I was obese. Exclusion is a lonely feeling.