weight to drop back down to that size.
So there was no chance I was ever going to get into a two again. Heck, there really wasn’t any possibility I would ever squeeze my body into a size ten, so I didn’t know why I couldn’t let the smaller sizes go. Especially since I really didn’t have room for them. My closet was so jam-packed that it was impossible to know what was even in there. I should have donated most of it to Goodwill so they could have gone to someone who could actually make use of them.
But instead of doing anything sensible like that, I’d packed them all up when I’d left Providence a few months ago, and I’d moved them all the way across the country to Portland, and now they were practically laughing at me, bulging from the stacks, while I tried to figure out what I should wear on this date.
My eyes wandered over to the cute side of the closet—the side filled with sizes two to twelve, even though a decade ago I would never have imagined calling size twelve cute —and I let my fingers trail longingly over a few of the pieces that had made me feel good about myself. Amazing jeans that fit my butt like a glove. Tops in bright colors or full of sparkle and flash. Snug, slightly revealing dresses. I hadn’t even needed to wear Spanx back in the day to keep everything where it belonged. My body had been sleek and toned, and it had done whatever I’d wanted it to do. Now I felt like a big lump. I was like the marshmallow-puff dude from the Ghostbusters movie.
Staring at that part of the closet wasn’t going to do me any good. It would just remind me how I wasn’t that person anymore, and I never would be again, and then I might end up texting Keith and telling him that something had come up and I couldn’t go out with him after all. I’d done that to a couple of guys in Providence after the night I’d spent with Keith, before I’d been offered this position with Rose City. Chickening out had only made me feel worse about myself than I already had, and that was saying something.
I couldn’t keep doing that. I had to find a way to be comfortable in my own skin again, to feel good about myself because of who I was on the inside, regardless of how I looked on the outside. This was no way to live. I was getting to the point where not only was I lacking in confidence but I was starting to not like the person I was because disliking my outward appearance was becoming something of an obsession.
After a ton of hemming and hawing, I finally settled on a gray maxi skirt that I sometimes wore when teaching my smooth ballroom classes. It had silvery threads woven through it to add a bit of pizzazz. I settled on a black, shapeless tunic on top because at least if it was shapeless, it wasn’t hugging me too tight anywhere. That was about as nice as I could manage with the current state of my closet.
I threw those things on over my Spanx, found a pair of silver pumps that would do the job, and added a silver scarf since it was pretty cold out and Keith had made a point of telling me to wear something warm. A couple of other accessories later, I was ready to go.
When I returned to the living room of my apartment, Bradley Cooper lifted his head and yawned so wide that his entire face disappeared. He was all mouth. Not the real Bradley Cooper, of course. This Brad—BC—was one of my cats, a big, fluffy Ragdoll that was almost fully white. His face, ears, paws, and tail were a soft brown, but everywhere else he was white. Which meant I couldn’t let him come anywhere near me at the moment or my black-and-gray outfit would be covered with white cat fur. And that meant that, of course, there was nowhere else he would rather be at the moment that curled up on me and my clothes.
BC jumped down from the back of the sofa where he’d been lounging and sauntered over to me, burrowing under my skirt and sitting between my feet. He always did that when I wore long skirts, as though he thought they created an
So there was no chance I was ever going to get into a two again. Heck, there really wasn’t any possibility I would ever squeeze my body into a size ten, so I didn’t know why I couldn’t let the smaller sizes go. Especially since I really didn’t have room for them. My closet was so jam-packed that it was impossible to know what was even in there. I should have donated most of it to Goodwill so they could have gone to someone who could actually make use of them.
But instead of doing anything sensible like that, I’d packed them all up when I’d left Providence a few months ago, and I’d moved them all the way across the country to Portland, and now they were practically laughing at me, bulging from the stacks, while I tried to figure out what I should wear on this date.
My eyes wandered over to the cute side of the closet—the side filled with sizes two to twelve, even though a decade ago I would never have imagined calling size twelve cute —and I let my fingers trail longingly over a few of the pieces that had made me feel good about myself. Amazing jeans that fit my butt like a glove. Tops in bright colors or full of sparkle and flash. Snug, slightly revealing dresses. I hadn’t even needed to wear Spanx back in the day to keep everything where it belonged. My body had been sleek and toned, and it had done whatever I’d wanted it to do. Now I felt like a big lump. I was like the marshmallow-puff dude from the Ghostbusters movie.
Staring at that part of the closet wasn’t going to do me any good. It would just remind me how I wasn’t that person anymore, and I never would be again, and then I might end up texting Keith and telling him that something had come up and I couldn’t go out with him after all. I’d done that to a couple of guys in Providence after the night I’d spent with Keith, before I’d been offered this position with Rose City. Chickening out had only made me feel worse about myself than I already had, and that was saying something.
I couldn’t keep doing that. I had to find a way to be comfortable in my own skin again, to feel good about myself because of who I was on the inside, regardless of how I looked on the outside. This was no way to live. I was getting to the point where not only was I lacking in confidence but I was starting to not like the person I was because disliking my outward appearance was becoming something of an obsession.
After a ton of hemming and hawing, I finally settled on a gray maxi skirt that I sometimes wore when teaching my smooth ballroom classes. It had silvery threads woven through it to add a bit of pizzazz. I settled on a black, shapeless tunic on top because at least if it was shapeless, it wasn’t hugging me too tight anywhere. That was about as nice as I could manage with the current state of my closet.
I threw those things on over my Spanx, found a pair of silver pumps that would do the job, and added a silver scarf since it was pretty cold out and Keith had made a point of telling me to wear something warm. A couple of other accessories later, I was ready to go.
When I returned to the living room of my apartment, Bradley Cooper lifted his head and yawned so wide that his entire face disappeared. He was all mouth. Not the real Bradley Cooper, of course. This Brad—BC—was one of my cats, a big, fluffy Ragdoll that was almost fully white. His face, ears, paws, and tail were a soft brown, but everywhere else he was white. Which meant I couldn’t let him come anywhere near me at the moment or my black-and-gray outfit would be covered with white cat fur. And that meant that, of course, there was nowhere else he would rather be at the moment that curled up on me and my clothes.
BC jumped down from the back of the sofa where he’d been lounging and sauntered over to me, burrowing under my skirt and sitting between my feet. He always did that when I wore long skirts, as though he thought they created an
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