Lame.
It may sound silly, but I miss the pea-soup-fog-all-day summers of my youth!!! To me, I guess because it's what I grew up with, that's what summer is supposed to be like. Cozy under a thick blanket of fog with the occasional hour or two of gorgeous sunlight around 2 or 3 (just after the tourists have given up on the beach!)
Anyway, since it's actually been hot this summer (well hot by my standards anyway, which most of you would probably laugh at.... you know... anything over 68), I've been wearing a lot of tank tops.
It doesn't hurt that I discovered early in the summer months that thanks to all my efforts in the gym I actually LIKE the way my torso looks in a ribbed tank for the first time in... well... ever! So pretty much every day for the last few months has had me in a tank top with a light cardigan.
Well over the weekend we actually had a classic Monterey foggy summer day!! Just because it's foggy doesn't mean it's cold though, in fact, foggy days are often our warmest because they trap the heat in and tend to have less ocean breezes, so I didn't feel like wearing a cardigan, but I'm not yet comfortable enough to go with bare arms out in public.
I went into the closet and pulled out one of my bajillion (which is an actual word in the oxford dictionary as of 2011, btw) solid color deep V t-shirts from the shelf. These T-shirts have been my staple for about 2 years now. You can buy them just about anywhere inexpensively all year long, I thought the deep V was fairly flattering, and just buying that in every available color and wearing it under sweatshirts or cardigans eliminated the need to try on clothes and get depressed about not fitting in any of them.
I pulled out a pale pink one that was a favorite last summer and realized it now looks like a big, easter-colored, jersey, knit tent. With a pocket!
It was HUGE!! I had to put it on for a second of course, and gloat at the mirror I'm now brave enough to have in my room (a full- length mirror no less) and MIGHT have said something a bit confrontational to the cat about telling her so or some such thing... maybe... not that I'd admit to it.
But then I got confused! I just bought a couple of those shirts in April or May and they were snug on me. I know I've lost a significant amount of weight since then, but not THAT much weight.... So I went back into the t-shirt stack to investigate.
Now, I THOUGHT that all of the t-shirts were the same size, and know that almost all of them are from Target in the same brand... Well it ends up they actually spanned sizes L - XXL!!!
How did I not even notice that I was buying smaller sizes?!?!?!
So really, before I even consciously realized I was buying smaller sizes, and was sitting here doing all that whining about how my progress was so slow and my clothes weren't fitting any differently, I was just being dumb!!!
I proudly went through that stack yesterday at lunch and put all the XXL and XL shirts from the 'day' shirts shelf to the 'gym' shirts shelf, and packed that pale pink one into my gym bag.
Every time class got especially challenging last night and I wanted to modify the moves, or take a break, or was whining inside that I was tired and just wanted to go home, I thought about how BIG that pink shirt was on me.
I even braved a couple glances in the mirrors at the front of the room and for the first time ever wasn't horrified by what I saw (well, other than my wild half sweaty hair and how incredibly red someone as pastey as myself can get when exerting themselves).
This is an especially big deal because the 2 girls that always stand at the front on that side of the room are BEAUTIFUL. And I don't mean beautiful the way I tend to believe just about everyone is beautiful; these girls are unarguably gorgeous and fit. Some of the thinnest, most in shape, naturally pretty people I've ever seen (and super nice too, so you can't even secretly judge them and go 'well they may look great but they're sucky people' or whatever like I like to do while watching reality tv). So that means I was glimpsing my reflection between the two of them and theirs...
Which may have a lot to do with why I found it SO horrifying in the past when at the gym, now that I think about it... Duh!!
That big pink shirt was just about the most motivating thing I've ever worn in my life. Far more than any goal pant fitting or too-small favorite clothing item making me want to be able to wear it again.
I think I'll keep that big pink shirt forever!!
And wear those other too-big shirts from the gym every day from now on.
Heck, if I'm having a tough day and haven't done laundry in a while maybe I'll even wear an old sweater or button-down just for the motivation!
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