The Clothes Make the Girl (Look Fat)?

by Brittany Gibbons

  And then there was me. I had packed only two two-piece suits for this vacation, both of them of the younger and sexier variety because we were spending the following week of our family vacation at the beach, where the standard of decency is a little more relaxed. I tried to rectify the situation by running to Walmart to buy a one-piece, but it was November, and Walmart wasn’t selling bathing suits in November because it’s winter, even though it’s clearly still Satan’s armpit in central Florida.

  I decided on a lavender string bikini top with black high-rise bottoms, and then styled my hair in a ponytail meant to look messy and easy, despite taking over half an hour to do.

  All the self-assurance I’d walked into the pool gate with was squashed as I descended the steps into the pool and one of those iced-coffee moms muttered “yikes” under her breath. I don’t know for sure that she was saying it in reference to me, but the timing was pretty dead-on, and the other three moms in similarly patterned tankinis looked my way as soon as she said it.

  Maybe she thought my bathing suit was a little inappropriate for the family pool, and she’d have been right. Because as soon as I waded in, leaned against the four-foot-deep sign painted along the inner wall of the pool, and sank my body below the waves, my kids began to climb on me as if they’ve never been exposed to water before. Gigi clung to my neck and squealed and Wyatt attached his body to my right side, his legs wrapped around mine like a tiny kraken as I struggled to reposition the triangle of my bikini top back over my breast.

  A woman getting into the pool with her tween daughter caught my eye. She wore a black athletic bikini and had actual ab muscles that flexed as she made her way deeper into the water. She spent a few minutes watching her daughter do handstands underwater, and then found some shade along the ledge beside me.

  I worked to coax my children from my body, stuffing my boobs back into my lavender bikini top as they finally swam away, and met the woman’s eye in the process and smiled. She made being a mom in a bathing suit with her kids look so cool. It was like watching a J.Crew ad unfold before my eyes. She could probably run after her daughter and not have to adjust her FUPA back into her bikini bottoms when she stopped.

  “I hate the pool,” she said, nodding toward me as she looked for her daughter.

  “Me too,” I squeaked, relieved that someone was talking to me.

  “I don’t even want to think about how much pee is in this thing, I just want to go back and put on my sweatpants.” She sighed.

  And that is when I realized we are all in this urine bath together. That nasty woman with the iced coffee probably would have been just as disgusted by me if I’d gotten into the pool wearing a wet suit. I wasn’t there to impress forty-year-old moms. I was barely even there to impress my kids, and I had to hang out with them later. I was there to impress me. I’m the only one who needs to feel comfortable in my bathing suit, unless you’re asking me if it’s comfortable so you can borrow it, in which case the answer is no, because I don’t like to share underwear with people.

  Now, one thing that seems to get bantered about on the Internet quite frequently is this notion that “Fat girls shouldn’t wear bikinis.” It shows up in the comments section of my website often. As someone who has worn a bikini in Times Square, I can never quite wrap my head around it. A bathing suit is a bathing suit. My body shape doesn’t change if my suit is a one-piece or two-piece. The only difference is that one suit is easier for me to pull down while going to pee.

  And, if my being proud to show my body makes you want to get fat because you think I’m promoting obesity, or you think bikinis aren’t flattering on plus-size women, well, guess what, I don’t give a hoot. What about me wearing a bikini should make someone uncomfortable?

  You know what makes me uncomfortable? Rattails. I was once behind a guy buying boiled peanuts in Macon, Georgia, and he had a rattail. I was going to say something to him about it, but then I remembered that he was a person with feelings and the right to personal choices, and I don’t get to pick what made him feel attractive.

  The reason it’s so hard to imagine a world where you put on a bathing suit and walk around without ever worrying about how you look is that that world does not exist. Here’s the reality of wearing a bathing suit in public: 99 percent of the people around you do not care how you look and won’t say a word. The 1 percent who might, well, everyone already hates them anyways, because they’re jerks. These are the people who hover over toilet seats in public bathrooms getting their pee all over everything and then don’t wipe it up, or show up at weddings without RSVPing. Nobody likes them.

  Does your bathing suit cover most of your bush?

  Is there a screen print of Hitler on it?

  All no’s? Yeah, nobody cares, put the damn bathing suit on.

  I’m going to wear my bikinis forever, into every urine-filled pool I find.

  And I’m not sorry.

  FOR THE FELLAS IN THE BACK

  “I’m not sorry.”

  I find myself saying that a lot these days.

  “I would never be able to pull that off,” she says, eyeing me from the short hem of my sundress down to my extra-tall cork-wedge sandals.

  “I’m not sorry.”

  “You’d be really pretty if you lost weight,” the man at my nana’s table said to me as I lunched with them at the nursing home.

  “I’m not sorry.”

  “I’m selling a shake that could really change your life,” she calls after me as I walk away from the bar at my friend Amanda’s wedding reception.

  “I’m not sorry.”

  “I don’t think leggings are pants,” she snarked into her coffee as she stood next to me on the sidelines of our sons’ soccer game.

  “I’m not sorry.”

  Here’s the truth. I could be standing in front of you in a snowsuit, with a half-marathon medal around my neck, holding a laminated copy of my most recent blood work, EKG, and W-9 while running on a treadmill in a gym, and you’d still have contempt for this body. There is no win with you, society. And it can be pretty depressing. I mean, why even try?

  But eventually I realized that if I consume so much of your day, if you can’t do anything else with yourself when I am around other than look at my body and decide if you like it or not, I don’t want to hang out with you. You actually make me really uncomfortable.

  I used to apologize for myself all the time. I’ve apologized to fitting room attendants in stores I don’t feel 100 percent comfortable in. “I’m sorry, could I try this on?”

  I’ve apologized to servers if my meal wasn’t right, partially because I’ve seen the movie Waiting and I’m terrified to eat jizz, but also because I feel like my body is already so associated with food that if I say something, it will seem as if food is all I care about because I’m a giant fat food monster. “I’m sorry, I asked for steak on this salad, not salmon?”

  I’ve done the shoulder-shrug, eyebrow-raise “I’m sorry” face to people who’ve had to sit next to me on airplanes, and I’ve apologized to a group of people that I had to squeeze in the middle of while a photograph for an award I won was taken. I was the winner. And I was the one apologizing. That doesn’t even make sense.

  Here’s a list of things I will be apologizing for, going forward:

  1. Farting in public.

  2. Hitting an animal while driving. I live in the country, and squirrels are everywhere. I actually pull over, apologize profusely, and then give them their last rites, which is something you can totally google. It’s a really nice ceremony. It’s peaceful.

  3. Watching House of Cards without you. I couldn’t wait.

  4. Accidentally hitting your car in a parking lot. Okay, seriously, how do I even have a license?

  5. Forgetting your birthday.

  6. Eating someone else’s leftovers in the fridge. Put your stupid name on it, Andy!

  What will I no longer be apologizing for? Everything else.

  People talk about body love as a place you
arrive at, with no mention of the journey it takes to get there. Like they just woke up with it one day, and how unfortunate for you that you haven’t gotten there yet. Confidence is not something that just happens to you, like getting your first period or being selected for jury duty. It comes after spending years, decades even, putting in the hard work of getting to know your body, forgiving yourself for the way you’ve treated it, and learning to appreciate how absolutely amazing it is. That’s why it feels so good when you finally figure this whole self-love thing out, and spaz out so much when it slips through your fingers every now and then. Body love is hard work.

  Okay, new best friend, I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my journey. I’m sorry if I made you cringe, or overshared about my sexy time or my underwear issues. I tend to talk a lot when I’m nervous. But maybe you learned a few things, too? I hope so. My wishes for you are as follows:

  Do not ever worry that a love of fashion and self-care makes you any less of a card-carrying body-positive woman. You deserve to be seen, so have fun with your experience and show the world who you are.

  Please know that you can spend a whole lifetime losing and gaining weight, and none of it has a thing to do with who you are in your soul and mind; it only determines which pair of jeans you put on that day.

  Always dress fearlessly. Explore new cuts, buy a bikini, give the middle finger to the snooty clerk selling you crop tops, and commit to at least three fashion mistakes and successes a month.

  And lastly, know that this body is yours, and the limitations you put on it are your own, and subject to change without notice. No one gets to decide how much skin you show, or whether or not you shave your legs or wear a bra. Your standard of beauty is determined by you and you alone.

  And for anyone who says our bodies make them uncomfortable?

  We’re not sorry.

  CHAPTER 14

  Thank-You Notes

  Thank you, Natasha, for firing me from the Toledo Country Club, even though I had already quit a week prior, and you asked me to work until you returned from vacation to then fire me yourself. While being escorted out with my belongings was excessive and humiliating, the experience made me hungry to work harder to become wealthy enough to return to the country club as a member and treat you only half as badly as you treated me. Because twelve years later, I understand that it’s hard to be a woman in a male-driven workplace and the only power you had is what you could exert over me. The only thing I have left to say to you is to ask you where you bought your amazing black power suits.

  Thank you to my daughter’s friend Genevieve, who told me I looked “very fancy” when I volunteered as lunch mom. Your comment made me feel very confident that day, and I think of you every time I help one of my kids put a straw into their Capri Suns.

  Thank you, Ashley Graham. Every time you wear a bathing suit cut high in the thigh, you blow my mind and make me damn proud to be a curvy woman in this world. Never stop doing it because I’m pretty sure I’m not the only woman you make feel that way.

  Thank you to the man in Mexico who mistook me for a prostitute while I was waiting for the taxi I’d called. I wasn’t sure how much I would charge should I ever become a sex worker, and now I know I was grossly undervaluing myself.

  Thank you, Junior High Burn Book, for letting me know that I was ugly and that I “tried too hard” to get people to like me. That was a totally fair assessment of my teen years. I was that girl in school trying to give people gifts in exchange for friendship. Luckily, it seems as an adult I’ve simply run out of fucks to give.

  Thank you, Mom, for being one of my best friends. Not many girls my age had great relationships with their mothers, but ours was always the exception. You were never a regular mom, you were a cool mom. I hope to have the same wonderful bond with my own daughter, until she slams the door in my face and tells me she hates me. Please call her and tell her what a great mom I really am when that happens.

  Thank you to whoever invented the menstrual cup. It’s horrifyingly messy, but it’s nice not waking up after a night of drinking and finding three tampons shoved up inside of me. You save me from toxic shock syndrome, and I appreciate that about you.

  Thank you to the boy who told me I was really bad at giving blow jobs. You were right, I’m terrible. I can’t seem to sync up my mouth with my hand around the shaft, and I never know what to do with my second hand. Do I play with the balls? Anyways, I’m certain my husband appreciates your honesty.

  Thank you to Lucille Ball. You were the original “bitches get shit done” gal and may we not only share the roots on our heads, but persistence in being particularly loud and commanding in a man’s world.

  Thank you, ex–Lululemon CEO Chip Wilson and former Abercrombie CEO Mike Jeffries, for being massive dicks. You callously misjudged plus-size shoppers who were eager to shove money at your brands. It stung at first, but somehow we’ve managed to carry on without buying see-through athletic leisure or obnoxious graphic surfer T-shirts from either of your stores.

  Thank you, Bill, who left me in the middle of homecoming to go home with his ex-girlfriend, Nikki. I ended up having an amazing night with my girlfriends. I was unsure about going to the dance with you in the first place because your eyes were always bloodshot and you smelled like rubber tires. It turns out my instincts were correct, and since then I’ve listened to them more.

  Thank you to Mindy Kaling, for your impeccable execution in the wearing of short skirts, curvy thighs, and lighting-quick wit. I won’t say I want to be you when I grow up, because I think we’re the same age and that’s condescending, so let’s just settle for being long-distance best friends who text each other during The Bachelorette.

  Thank you, Christian Siriano, for your inclusivity and wicked plus-size designs. Thank you for stepping up to the plate and dressing the amazing curvy women who are shunned by other designers. May I one day find myself in one of your gorgeous gowns, whether it be on the red carpet or while having a dance party in my backyard with my daughter.

  Thank you, Internet trolls, for faking concern about my health in order to shame me about my body. Congratulations on still not being medical doctors or decent human beings. I’m sure everyone at your twenty-year high school reunion is going to be super-impressed by you.

  Thank you to the Academy for this Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, and to Aidy Bryant, who portrayed me flawlessly.

  Thank you, Mr. Green, my twelfth-grade English teacher. You are very hard to find. I sent identical handwritten letters to every “Mike Green” in the local phone book. I hope you got one. If not, I just wanted to say thank you for telling me that I would be an idiot to be anything in this world other than a writer. That has actually worked out really well for me.

  Thank you, People of Walmart, for turning public humiliation into a sport. May you and your children never fall victim to the despicable hate you perpetuate for clicks and shares.

  Thank you to every boy who would only make out with me in secret. In the moment, you made me feel special, but as I look back, you illustrated the shame you felt about dating someone who looked like me. Because of you, I never dated a boy who was embarrassed about what I looked like again.

  Thank you, Andy, for being oblivious as to what size my jeans are. Some days it’s all I can think about, and I try to show you what the tag says, but you simply don’t care. Instead you spend the next thirty minutes worshiping my body enough for the both of us, and I forget what was on the stupid tag to begin with.

  Thank you, Wyatt, for writing in your first-grade school report that you loved me because I had the softest belly, because I never cook in the kitchen, and because I sing really loud when I drink wine. This statement was so profoundly accurate that I’ve added it to my LinkedIn profile.

  Thank you to my readers and followers. You have lined the journey of learning to love myself with companionship and support. I’ve definitely spent more time half-naked in public than I assumed I would have at this point in my life, but I
wouldn’t take back a minute. May we continue to lift each other up, overshare our bodies, and eat our feelings together for a long, long time to come.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I am writing these acknowledgments while sitting next to my husband on the couch. Every time he tries to look over at my screen, I lean forward and cover it with my whole body. I think he thinks I am watching porn.

  I wasn’t watching porn, Andy. I was writing this thank-you to you. You’ve been my dedicated other partner for as long as I have written words, even though a solid half of them were about you. Thank you for being a willing participant in this life, for being the man I love more than anything, and for allowing me to check out of adult responsibility every few months to follow this dream.

  Thank you to my kids: Jude, Wyatt, and Gigi. Thank you for always being my biggest cheerleaders, just as I am honored to always be yours. Even when you’re teenagers and you tell me I’m embarrassing. I won’t stop. Ever.

  Mom and Dad, I know I don’t say it enough, but I am so happy to have been raised by you, to have a life filled with stories and magic. I am so lucky to have you both.

  Thank you to my editor, Carrie Thornton, for letting me write more books. I would be honored to write a thousand more for you, friend.

  Kate McKean. You are an amazing friend and an amazing agent. Thank you for always answering my panicked texts and emails. I only feel competent because you remind me that I am when I need it the most.

  I am very thankful to be surrounded by women who support me, who let me lean on them, and who have truly become my greatest family. Jodi, Jess, Laura, Sarah, Kelly, Melanie, Catherine, Heather, Robyn, Rhonda, Danielle, DaNetra, Shauna, and Jenelle, thank you for always leading by example and being the strong women in my life. I learn so much from you.

  Rachel Smith, the only reason this book is finished is because you showed up at my house and made me finish it.