A Story of Recovery:
Under My Overalls
My favorite costume—my default outfit from college years through early motherhood— was a soft, worn pair of farmer pants. I loved these bibbed jeans and felt safe in them for years. The pale dungaree fabric was hefty enough to withstand constant use and frequent washings, the double-stitched seams were sturdy and resilient, and the overall sensation was one of being gently draped, much like a nude in a portable tent.
My farmer pants had a certain style and statement. While permitting freedom of movement, the loose-fitting pants allowed me to perform my cartwheels and back flips (I was both a daredevil and show-off, even at 160 pounds). I could sit on chairs back to front, legs splayed in ungainly casualness, elbows resting on the back of the chair. The bibbed front permitted me the bra-free bravado of my era and feminist inclinations. The high waistline was as loose and ill defined as a small hula-hoop, giving me license to wear tight-fitting, revealing, sleeveless t-shirts, without exposing my thick waste and bulging belly. The straps that held up the bib with metal clasps were narrow enough to reveal my broad shoulders and chunky enough to make me feel held together.
Because I felt cool in these farmer pants, I wore them everywhere. I went joy riding to the beach with a biker friend one summer, wearing a flimsy tank top and the bib from the waist up, but thoroughly clad from the waist down. My (then) more voluptuous breasts felt sexy and exposed in the breeze, and my bottom half, all of which caused me such shame and self-centeredness, was well concealed. I wanted to come across as casual, free, and liberated; the outfit got me there.
In truth, of course, I was anything but casual, free, and liberated. My extreme self-consciousness about my weight and shape was a constant deterrent from any kind of freedom or care freeness. I thought incessantly about when to wear my overalls, and I vexed over the timing of when I could wash them in order to wear them again. I didn’t dare be without them. I had figured out how to dress them up with dangling earrings and tone them down with Dr. Scholl’s wooden sandals.
The farmer pants even informed my social life to some degree, as I’d prefer not to attend events where I couldn’t show up in this outfit. Even in the late 60s and early 70s, in the bohemian/hippy/political world that I inhabited, there was the odd place where a scantily clad young lady in farmer pants wouldn’t be welcomed. So, I wouldn’t go, or, I’d go deliberately to offend.
Inside, though, I was not the brazen, anti-establishment lady I sought to portray. Inside, I desperately wanted the long, thin legs of Jane Fonda’s Barbarella, and I yearned for the toned upper arms of The Bionic Woman. I squirmed with discomfort when a boyfriend’s hands would bump into the folds of fat at my waistline, and I’d try to never expose my upper thighs or backside to a male’s line of vision.
What I didn’t know then, and am only coming to realize now after several years in Program, is that my brazen and bizarre outside was really a mask for my terrified inside. I based decisions about my clothing, my public persona, and even my dating, on the terrible shame I had because of my overweight body.
Today, with frankly fewer beauty options (goodness, at 61 years old, I’m never going to look entirely ripe and wrinkle-free), I am honestly free to look my best. I can choose any kind of jeans or tops to be formal, relaxed, or professional, based on what’s appropriate. I can take advice from my sponsor and hear what looks most attractive on me with less of a defensive “I don’t do tight pants!”
There’s a long way to go. Old habits as an insecure, fat, food addict still surprise me, like when I bring three different sizes to the dressing room–12, 10, and 8–having learned that I’m actually a size 6! But there’s a happy acceptance about who I am, what I look like, and how well I can look now. And finally, I’m genuinely learning to wear my life as a loose garment, without literally having to do so.