Wear It Like You Mean It

My 20 year class reunion was this past Saturday.  The date was written at the top of my training folder and it was the major thing I'd been working towards for months.  About 3 months ago I bought a super cute dress that I planned to wear for the evening.  It fit when I tried it on at the store, so I was confident that it would look fabulous by the time the reunion rolled around.  So, 9 weeks before the day I took a picture of myself in my dress to document the "transformation".  I used quotes for that word because I didn't see much of a transformation at all.  In fact, the day before the reunion I had my husband take a picture again and I was pretty bummed.  I compared it to the picture 9 weeks before and I didn't see any changes.  So, despite the fact that I'd bought this dress and paid to have it altered in my "upper region", I had pretty much talked myself out of wearing it.

I have another cute dress that I've worn to a few weddings.  It's sleeveless, like the reunion dress, but it's in a larger size.  I'm more comfortable wearing that dress.  My reunion dress actually fit.  Around the mid section there was no wiggle room.  In the alternate dress, I had room to move.  I felt like I would have been much more comfortable in the second dress.  So, I told my husband that I had changed my mind and was going with the other dress.  He wasn't overly thrilled with that fact, but ultimately he knew I was going to do what made me comfortable, so he didn't say much.  He did tell me one last time that the first dress looked good.

The morning of the reunion comes and I head to the gym to squeeze in a little more cardio and boxing before I pamper myself with a pedicure and new shoes.  It just so happens that morning my trainer had some "a ha" moments about me.  He was training another client who was just starting over after having a baby.  He had worked with her for a long time and, in fact, hers was one of the sessions I observed before I ever decided to work with him.  Her and I are a lot alike and I would ask about her periodically during my sessions and vice versa.  So, the two of us have kind of been lumped together from the beginning.  Me being the one striving to get to where she was.  All that to say that Saturday, he realized that I had gotten there.  I'm now doing things that she was doing when I started.  Working with her again, watching her have to start over, reminded him of where I started as well.  You kind of forget that stuff when you're so far removed from it.  Anyway, he gave me quite the ego boost telling me how much stronger I am now and I left the gym feeling really good.  With that new found confidence, I decided to wear the dress.

I texted a friend of mine as I was getting ready and I told her that I'd almost talked myself out of it.  However, I was standing a little taller and a little more proud, so I decided to wear it anyway.  I had been working my ass off to wear that dress and darn it, I was going to wear it.  Her words back to me were "Damn right you are and you're going to wear it like you mean it!".  So I did.  Even if I didn't see a huge transformation from the day I took the first picture to the day of the reunion, I still knew a transformation had taken place.  When I put that dress on, I definitely meant it!