I knew it was time to address my body image issues when shopping was no longer a fun activity.
I used to love going shopping and trying on clothes. It was my favorite way to spend Saturday with my mum or with my friends. I loved trying on an ungodly number of clothes in the dressing room and admiring how I looked. In truth, I was vain. This is usually a negative trait, but honestly, I miss liking my body enough to even consider myself vain.
I knew I had a problem when a trip to Zara made me anxious.
On a Wednesday night, I went to the huge Zara store in Hudson Yards. Setting foot in the store didn’t trigger anything abnormal. As I always do, I banked left and started running my hands over the fabrics and the texture of the clothes on the rail.
Zara is a place that naturally evokes self-reflection. The interior is stark. The colors are white and clinical, with plenty of conveniently-placed mirrors to glance into as you shop around. The aggressively bright white studio lighting forces everything into sharp focus. Apart from the colors of the clothes, all else feels laid bare.
It’s a place of comparison. Every other person in there is a young woman about my age who feels impossibly more stylish and confident than I do. You can hear snatches of conversation about vacations or parties to attend or needing a replacement for the black pants you’ve worn to death.
There were so many beautiful things that I dared not touch because of some sudden reluctance. Deep down, I didn’t want to pick anything up. I didn’t want to try anything on. Most of all, I didn’t want to admit that I couldn’t fit into the things I used to be able to fit into.
I noticed that stress and panic started to rise in me only when I had accumulated an armful of clothes and try-on time had come. I hate fitting rooms. They are nearly always ill-lit and claustrophobic. It’s a special torture for those not confident with their bodies to have to face a full-length image of yourself half-in and half-out of a pair of linen pants because you can’t get the fabric over your thigh. It’s dedicated time to increasingly loathe your stomach as you look at it under white neon lighting. Fitting rooms may as well be a sauna of self-critical thoughts.
I bought one floaty top and left a sad pile of clothes with the fitting room attendant. That was good for my wallet, at least. I walked home feeling uneasy and upset.
This benign shopping trip seemed to crystallize the bad thoughts I was having about my body into a more solid, tangible form. It might have been the first time that I had to face the fact that I couldn’t fit into the size I was used to fitting into.
Before that night, I can’t remember looking at clothing and having my first thought be “will that fit me?” Usually, my first thought was simply “hmm, do I like that?” I operated on the assumption that I could wear almost anything if I wanted to. Shorts. Strappy tops. Short dresses. Tight skirts. Anything was a viable option.
Now, in my ever-narrowing interpretation of how I allow myself to clothe my body, my options have dwindled.
Body change is hard. It’s hard when your body changes so slowly and incrementally that you don’t notice it for so long until one day you look in the mirror and feel confused because the image you see isn’t the one you hold in your mind. Confronting that you have changed is harder still. Accepting that you have changed, and moving on, is the hardest of all.
I think this experience has shown me that I need to properly mourn the body and the self that doesn’t exist anymore. I need to forgive myself for the choices that led to my body changing. I also need to stop believing that I can somehow go back to the body I used to have.
I can’t step into my new body with pride and confidence if I’m still clinging to the memory of the old one.
