An Afternoon with Nemeses Turned Friends

Today, as time drifts away and we approach the big night of Harry Potter, I’ve been hanging out at my parents’ house and taking it easy. Chatting with my father and younger brother, occasionally checking email and . . .

Trying on old clothes, which were the bane of my former Michigan existence.

Okay, so it’s not exactly a family-centric activity, but as my brother drifted off to take a nap (after waking up at noon) and my father decided to do yard work, I had to find something to occupy my time. And I was curious—was my skinny dress now going to fit after having lost 14 pounds in the past four months? The skinny dress had not fit the last time I tried it on, which was probably late 2005; it certainly didn’t fit in 2006, when good luck, work, lots of new restaurants, and heavy alcohol consumption combined to make me a very tight size eight. However, would it fit now?

? ? ?

Yes, it fits!

I couldn’t believe it when I slipped it on—finally, it fit, without the “a bit more to go” thoughts from my skinny dress post. I could wear it out and about were IP and I to go out for a nice dinner. I also decided to try on every other wedding-related dress I still had in my arsenal (plenty, let me tell you), and they all looked great. Particularly the dress that I wore to my friend S’s wedding in 2004; while I did have a car accident in it (and thus good memories are not associated with this garment), it looks better on me now than it did three years ago. It used to be tight at my chest, but now it fits very nicely.

Thus ensued a round of trying on every piece of garment I still owned from 2000 and on. The gray dress pants from Gap? Check! The two sun dresses from Old Navy that stopped fitting around the time I met IP and he made me great food and we drank a lot and we were all happy and newly in love (or at least headed that way)? Check! That white wraparound dress from Express (from 2000, before the wraparound dress really came back) that’s a size seven, has really never fit, and I’ve actually never taken the tags off of? Check (I’m wearing that one to work with a cardigan)! The cute red and white skirt from American Eagle that I bought with my friend Ron in tow, when the saleswoman suggested that I try on a six because an eight might be too big (the six was a bit too small)? Check! The cord pants that I got at Kohl’s that were tight then and that were actually made a bit too short by the stomach pooch? Check! The Old Navy pants that were much too tight when I ordered them but just never returned them? Che—

Well, not so much on that last one. There are some things that I bought that were just not built for this curvy body (a supposedly perfect .70 hip-to-waist ratio, I might add). Some of my stuff was just made for the straight-bodied among us, and would never fit. I am fine with that, though, because . . .

My skinny dress fits again!