Clothes Shopping

I am one of those rare creatures who hate clothes shopping.  I mean, loath, despise, HATE.  There aren't enough words to describe how much I dislike shopping for clothes.  I usually have to be in the mood to go shopping, and I MUST need something and that is why I am going.

I had to go clothes shopping last week.  I've been interviewing for different positions and I'm not liking how I'm looking.  My work clothes are all too big, I put on my "reliable" dress on Sunday, to ensure that it was clean and pressed, and it kept slipping off my shoulder.    I didn't think the off the shoulder look would bode well for the interview that I had lined up for this week.  I headed out on my own to my old stand by store.  I was a little panicked when I saw that they didn't have any skirts currently and only had one style of dress in three colours.  I grabbed a dress in each colour and headed to the dressing room.  I changed into the first dress and cringed, it looked truly horrid on me, but for all the wrong reasons, reasons I'm not used to.  Instead of being too tight and making me look like a stuffed sausage, it was too big!   I almost bought it because of the panic.  I needed something to wear for the interviews and I didn't have a lot of time!

I left the store and saw another one further down the mall.  I know that my sister had bought me a sweater out of that store a couple of years ago but until now,  nothing else fit.  I went into the store and sighed a little bit, they did have a plus woman's size shop in the back right corner of the store and I could see 2 dresses there.  I took the largest one in each size back to the change room and was surprised when I put them on that they were also too big.  I had a different sensation this time.  I was thrilled!

I was technically in a "normal" clothing store and something I tried on was too big.  The sales girl went and got me the next size down.  I was so surprised that it fit.  I couldn't make my mind up between the two dresses so I went home empty handed.  I did however do what every girl does.  I called my mom!  She was available to go shopping with me and we headed out the next morning.  As wewere driving my mom suggested that we go to one of the major department stores to see what they had.  My first instinct was to say that I didn't think they would have anything that would fit me.  My mom pointed out that if the one store I went into yesterday did, then there was a good chance other stores would as well.

We headed to the mall and for the first time in my adult life, probably from the time I was maybe 16, I bought a dress in a regular department store.  I was very hesitant going in, I wasn't sure that I was going to find anything, and instead we found two beautiful outfits and they both fit me really well.  I really wanted to get both but the budget prevailed and I managed to get a beautiful versatile dress for less than what I would have thought.   I was thrilled with the fact that I now have so many different options available to me for shopping.

I've always relied on just one store here in Canada, and one in the States.  Other than making my own clothes (which I've done) they were my only clothing options. When you've been as large as a 6x, you don't have a lot of choices.   I'm excited that as I continue on my journey the options are just going to keep coming.

It was a pretty darned good feeling!