The Pile of Dresses

     I could never relate to the women portrayed on screen getting dressed for an event.  It didn't matter if it was a bowling date or a formal event these women always accumulated piles of clothes that didn't suit their needs.  Maybe it is because I've never really owned oodles of clothes to simply ponder my options or because I usually just decide on my outfit early on.  Until last week...

I get so easily flustered when dressing for events, especially when I don't know the person throwing the gala.  How many times have you wanted to call the host and inquire about the expected dress.  That's the situation I found myself in Saturday night.  We were attending the retirement party for one of Hubby's co-workers, Willie.  The party was being thrown by his wife and held at the Lions Club.  As it is always better to err on the side of caution we decided to dress up.  If we were way over-dressed we could always say we came from another event.

This decision through my original outfit out the window.  The dress I wanted to wear was one I've been donning frequently for dressy casual dinners out and such.  Hanging in the back of my closet was a space saver bag filled with formal dresses I hope to fit back into one day.  I can't remember what prompted me to investigate the bag of dresses but I did.  Thus my pile of dresses began.      When you are overweight I think it is easy to forget that you weren't always "this big".  We (those of us with weight issues) know we didn't jump from size 2 to 4X over night.  However, at least for me, it becomes hard to distinguish where or when our sizes changed.        Upon seeing the bag I was hoping to wear one of two red dresses I have, thinking most everything else in there was too small for me yet.  Which also tells you how long this bag has been hanging in my closet. There are 2 long gowns from our cruise (2006) formal dress wear from our London Trip (2010) and some other dresses from along the way.  I snagged Meg to help critique my outfits.  Within minutes we had covered the bed with outfits that were TOO BIG!!  How did this happen?     That's when I realized that it is so easy to always picture yourself at the two ends of the journey and lose track of places along the way.        When I started Weight Watchers last June I know without a fact that I was at my highest weight.  I know that my weight has yo-yo'd over the last decade. Maybe it is due to the minimal number of formal events we've been to lately. I don't know how it came to be that I have this pile of dresses that no longer fit but I do!!!      Back to Saturday night.  Unfortunately I wasn't able to comfortably (aka w/o wearing spanx) fit into either of the red dresses.  I decided to wear a pink skirt suit that I bought in 2003 for the first Melaleuca convention I attended.  I remember it being such a tight fit I had to buy control garments.  This Saturday it was a little big but it was Meg's choice and who is going to argue with a 16 yr old over fashion choices?   By mid-evening I realized that every time I walked around I had to be mindful that my skirt wasn't falling down, I actually almost lost the slip twice. So I have a number of formal wear that doesn't fit!  Should I have them altered?  Sell them on eBay? Take them to a consignment store?  Oh the problems of losing weight