A dress

Last Monday I gave a seventeen-year-old friend of mine an evening gown. It is dark purple and floor-length and has never been worn. I remembered that I had it when I took her to pick up her prom dress which had just finished being altered. We picked her dress up, then came to my house where she tried mine on. It fit perfectly and she liked it. It's gorgeous and looks great on her. She asked when I bought it, trying to figure out why I had it or how long I'd been holding on to it. "A few years ago," I said. I think she expected a different answer.

A little over four years ago to be exact, though I had to think about it. It was down in LA, at Divine Design, an annual shopping trip extravaganza I used to go to with my friend Maria. We went three years in a row and the third year, four years ago, I was extremely fit and thin and bought an evening gown. For no real reason other than:

-It was way, way on sale.
-All the money went to charity (Project Angel Food--a program that provides meals for home-bound patients with AIDS or cancer)
-I wanted a reason to wear a gown, so buying a gown seemed like a good start.

Four years ago I had just met and started dating my now-husband. I was doing Weight Watchers, which I'm almost positive I started before I met him but I can't for the life of me remember because my brain has completely turned to mush with the arrival of my four children. I hope it returns someday--there are a lot of good memories in there somewhere. The important point is I definitely didn't do Weight Watchers for him. I can say that with certainty because that is not something I would do, then or now.

He and I met and lived about an hour away from one another. We went on lots of fun, funny dates--like a one-woman play called Phone Whore (our second date) and a roller rink, an hour away from each of us. We also started going to bikram yoga together. I love yoga although I do not love bikram yoga. I did like seeing how strong and lithe I got though. I liked being able to push each pose a bit farther every class. I did not like the carpet or the heat or the smell or the total lack of mindfulness that I love so much about other styles of yoga. Though as I write that it occurs to me that the point of mindfulness is that one can work towards it anywhere. I digress.

All of this is to say that four years ago I bought a gown and last week I gave that dress to someone who is twenty-years younger than I am. I don't feel sad about this. I do feel. . .curious about what my body wants to be like now. I didn't bother trying that dress on because I knew it wouldn't fit and I was pretty sure it will never fit again. It fits her now and she has a reason to wear it--good enough for me. I want to be fit and healthy. I want to feed myself good, tasty food that gives me energy and fills me up, body and soul. I want to taste different flavors, textures, parts of the world and conversations that flow in the wake of certain meals. I do not want to waste my time wanting my body to look different--it's too important to me that I appreciate my physical self now, today. That has always mattered to me, no matter how much I weighed. All that said, it's nice to know what clothes to wear. Clothes that are comfortable and well-fitting and sometimes sexy. It won't be that gown. What will I put on?