Usually, this kind of situation causes a certain amount of stress for me. Why would spending a whole day with great women, having fun, drinking wine, shopping, and talking cause me stress?? Well, the reason really is quite dumb if you think about it but it is also one that I think many plus size women probably understand. It was because all the women I was with were thin.
Now, many of you are probably thinking in your head, really Julia?! Why would spending a whole day with thin women make you uncomfortable? But I feel that my plus size readers probably understand where I am coming from.
Let me explain. As a plus size woman, I am constantly aware that I am larger than the other women around me. I am very sure that they are probably not thinking about our size difference, but for me, that is one of the first things I think about when I get in a group of women. I try to compensate for that by being extremely selective about what I wear. I have been known to pick out my outfit weeks in advance, worrying over it, asking other people what they are wearing. I did that exact thing for this event. I knew exactly what I was going to wear for both the Friday night party and the whole day Saturday. I tried on my outfits in advance and critiqued myself on how they looked. I needed to be in outfits that I felt very comfortable in. I needed to feel good about the way I looked in my outfits in order not to be continually criticizing myself in my head. Being uncomfortable in my outfit can ruin an event for me.
While I was at Green Mountain, I rarely found myself uncomfortable around the other women. We were all different sizes and shapes. But there was an air of acceptance at Green Mountain that I have never found at any other place. I began to feel comfortable around the women to the extent that I never once fixed my hair or put on makeup for the whole 2 weeks I was there (thats a big step for me).
Since coming home from Green Mountain, I have found that I am more able to be comfortable in a group of women. I'm sure this has a little to do with the fact that I feel more confident because I have lost a little bit of weight. Mostly I think this has to do with what I learned at Green Mountain. Those women that I was with on Saturday did not care if I was larger than them. Our difference in sizes was not the first thing they saw when they looked at me.
That leads me to an interesting conversation that got me to thinking. Over the course of lunch, we played a game where we asked the bride questions that were written out on little cards. One of the questions was "would you permanently gain 30 pounds for a million dollars." Now I have to admit that I outweighed these women by way more than 30 pounds. My first instinct to this question was to say, yes, for a million dollars, I would totally gain 30 pounds. Most of the women, however, answered a very resounding NO. Now, like I said, I outweigh these women by way more than 30 pounds. I would take their weight plus 30 pounds any day of the week. And yet, most of them would not consider gaining 30 pounds for a million dollars. They would still be at a healthy weight if they were 30 pounds heavier. But society has made being overweight such a stigma that it would not even be worth a million dollars to gain 30 pounds. Not even 50 or 100 pounds, only 30 pounds.
To close, I just want to say that I was proud of myself over the weekend because I really felt comfortable among my friends. I did obsessively plan out my outfits. And I can't say that I felt comfortable 100% of the time and that I did not compare my body to theirs. But I can say that in my outfits and in my body, I finally felt comfortable enough to have a good time. That was what Green Mountain did for me.
The first thing I saw when I looked at this picture was not how much larger I am than my friends. And that is a nugget of success.
I just notice that you look beautiful, bright and happy!
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