Just Me Being Me: There She Is—Finding Myself in What I Wore
Do you pick out your own clothes?
Just Me Being Me is literally just me being me, living my life outside my comfort zone when it happens as it happens. Since I’m a dedicated introvert, this doesn’t happen much, which makes it doubly interesting when it does. Full disclosure: This is something I wrote on July 15, 2019. I’m going on a work retreat this March and have been obsessing about what to wear, so I thought I’d bring this piece back from when I started to buy clothes here in the U.S. that fit me.
Do you pick out your own clothes?
It seems like such a silly question to ask. It’s a task that most people do reflexively, a privilege often taken for granted, a social norm that may not be as common as it appears.
Of course, you probably pick out your own clothes. But how much of yourself do you put into it? How much of what you wear do you absolutely love, and how much of it is just necessary or utilitarian?
As a child, I was never told how to dress up.
I wore whatever I wanted, wherever I wanted. My mother fixed my hair, my father took my photos, and my siblings never made fun of me. It was a charmed life, one I look back on with nostalgia—or, more accurately, with the Brazilian/Portuguese state of saudade.
Yes, I was lucky and well-loved. I know! There’s no sob story here, no deep-seated trauma or fear of rejection. Would this story matter more if there were?
Having said that, this point in my life was as brilliant and as incandescent as I ever got about fashion and self-image. What happened to that little girl? Where did she go?
I’ve always been fat. I had always been heavier than average as a child, but it wasn’t noticeable until I started high school.
It was difficult to find cute and affordable clothes my size in Southeast Asia after I hit puberty.
Looking the way I wanted to look meant shopping at thrift stores and having dresses designed and made for me.
Do you know what having to buy clothes at maternity stores as a 14-year-old does to a young girl? It’s horrifying. Either they pity you because they assume you are actually with child, or they giggle behind your back because, guess what? You’re fat. Period. That’s the entire joke, from setup to punchline.
At some point, I gave up, gave in, and stopped caring. My closet became the final resting place of assorted hand-me-downs and occasional gifts from friends and family. I wore them all.
It wasn’t until we were packing for our big move to Las Vegas that I noticed how much I’d resigned myself to wearing whatever fit.
Three-fourths of my clothes were left behind because they didn’t spark any joy in me at all.
How could I not have realized that my closet was half filled with my best friend’s old—but comfortable and flattering—clothes?
I could count pieces I personally chose or had made to order with my fingers. Some of my dresses were over a decade old—painstakingly kept even in their worn condition because they were truly mine. It was a shame that I wore them so rarely, but it was the only way I knew to preserve them as much as I could.
Here I was, heading into the great unknown without a safety net, with an inordinate amount of socks, a few near-threadbare favorites, and almost nothing else. I didn’t even bring my wedding dress.
My friend took me to a Forever 21 sale in Vegas a few weeks after arriving. IT. BLEW. MY. MIND.
I tried on some clothes, and for the first time in my life, they weren’t too small—some fit perfectly, and some were too big.
“Wait ‘til we go to Walmart,” she said. “Or Target.”
She was right! Clothes that fit me were everywhere. Women who were shaped like me were everywhere.
I wondered what I would look like in clothes I picked out, head to toe. Just a few months ago, that would have been unthinkable for me. Isn’t that wild?
“Summer is here,” my best friend told me a few days later. We went to a Walmart to do the groceries, and there was a swimwear display. I got to pick a swimsuit that I loved and was in my size—an experience that was new to me.
I felt seen, I felt beautiful, and I felt like myself.
The situation felt odd, otherworldly, surreal, slightly off-kilter. My entire adult life, I was made to feel unnatural, unhealthy, unrepresented, un- everything. At that moment, my reality changed. I found a perfect-fitting, body-hugging item of clothing at my local supermarket.
I cried the first time I put on that swimsuit. A grin I haven’t seen since I was a little girl snuck its way out of the corner of my mouth.
“Ah,” I thought. “There she is.”
Photo by Carrie Borden on Unsplash
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