Growing up I was always a little bigger than my friends. As I got older and gained more weight, that gap got bigger and bigger until it was more of a canyon than a gap. In my teenage years and early twenties, I loathed shopping for clothes because it usually consisted of me sitting outside the fitting room of a store meant for girls much smaller than me, while I told my friends what I thought of all the cute clothes they got to try on. I usually found myself staring in the mirror on the front of the fitting room door, feeling depressed by my reflection.
Those years lead to many where I avoided the malls all together, and instead I shopped in plus size stores that were located in strip malls or separate buildings, where I didn’t have to walk past all of the stores for “skinny girls”. I shopped mostly alone and sometimes with my mother accompanying me, but rarely was I with a friend.
All I’ve wanted for so long is to be able to shop in the same stores as my friends, and tonight I finally got to do that. My friend and I aren’t anywhere near the same size, but we finally found a store with such a variety from extra small to XXL, that we got to pick things out and try them on together. Sure, some of the stuff that was cute on her didn’t fit me quite as well, but we got to shop side by side, picking things out for one another and talking about which dresses had a strangely placed waistline and what on earth I would wear with those neon yellow flats I found by the counter.
It’s something that I’m sure seems so trivial to you, but it was a dream come true for me.
