I'm really sorry to anyone who's thought that I'm staring at them during class or while I'm running.
One of my hangups has always been whether something looks too tight, or whether it clings, Or whether it makes me look fatter than I think I am. Or whether it makes other people think that I'm fat.
And lately, I've been needing to buy some new running and barre tops because my older ones have started to get embarrassingly big. Which I'd usually be OK with, but then I start to worry that people will think that I'm bigger than I am if there's all this fabric.
But then, what happens is that I buy these tops, and I try them on, and I am convinced that they must be too tight, because they don't have extra fabric, and they actually... well, don't flow. They fit like a workout top is supposedly supposed to look.
So I run, or go to class, and my side thought process is usually "OK, is that how this is supposed to look? Is it too tight? Is mine too tight? Do people look at me like I'm looking at them?" Because I know the look I don't want to have, which I can basically sum up when looking at other people as "She didn't want to buy her actual size so she bought the size she wants to be."
And I never want someone to look at me, and think that oh, it's such a shame I wouldn't buy my real size, but instead bought a tighter size that clearly doesn't fit.
On a site that I read, a question was posed about what the ideal aesthetic was. A lot of people commented with rather extreme examples, but it got me thinking about what mine was. And I realized (because sometimes, the rabbit holes of the Internet do have usefulness) that I don't want to be thin, because I don't think I ever can be thin. But I want the aesthetic of a distance runner.
enter awkward silence here
Muscular, but lean. Powerful, but not flabby. Which in turn got me thinking about how my clothes fit me, and what the perception might be to others. And that do I actually have this frame, even though I cover it up?
When I was in class a few days ago, I was thinking about a conversation I'd had with a couple of colleagues back when I'd been writing a piece on an program expansion in the eating disorder program at Former Employer.
In what still remains one of the most awkward workplace experiences ever -- the medical director, who I was interviewing, knew I was a former patient, and her colleague, the program director, who I was also interviewing, did not -- at one point, the program director made a comment about how their patients "totally could" wear slimmer clothes because they had the body for it, but because they thought they were fat, they wouldn't. And that they went for baggier clothes.
And at the time, this really didn't apply to me, I thought. I don't think I even used that example in the finished piece because I had to be brief-ish, and there were other anecdotes that worked better. (Because hey, for as awkward as that interview was, it was an awesome feature, and a writing sample that I will continue to use in my professional portfolio.)
But then, thinking about clothes and class and fitness, and the physique that I wanted, made me realize. I wear a size small/XS (depending on cut), with size 4 leggings. Maybe that runner's frame is actually there.
And I think those clothes aren't big enough because obviously I'm fat and I can't have clothes that show my actual size. Because who would want to see my actual size?
But then I look at other people, and I look at the website pictures, and I see that how it looks on me is how it looks on them. In my head, though, it's still too clingy, and it still makes me look fat, and hell no does anyone want to see that.
So. Um. Maybe there are some similar thought patterns after all.
I don't know what I think about wearing a top that is actually my size. And actually looks like the pictures say it should. Because in my head, it's not my size, and it can't possibly look on me like it does on them -- even though the mirror is pretty clear.
So that's why I stare. To see if I look like what I think others look like, and whether I can decide if that's what I can accept on me.
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