The Bra

When I was going through the agonizingly long process of divorce (North Carolina requires a year of separation before granting divorces), I lived in self-imposed non-dating exile. I’d been in relationships almost continuously since I was 14 and now, at 49,  I needed to experience life on my own.

In the spirit of reinvention, I purged a lot of my belongings, including much of my wardrobe. I bought a few new items—a  silk skirt, a sheath dress, and several pairs of sleek pumps. Then I set my mind on beautiful lingerie. I plucked up my nerve, bypassed Sears, and visited Victoria’s Secret at the mall. When I entered the store, so brazenly pink with delicate undergarments piled up in bins or suspended in decorative displays from the ceiling, I felt like I’d walked into the Red Tent. After reminding myself why I was there, I aimed for the vast selection of bras: uplifts, push-ups, demis, plunges, and bralettes.

I chose a handful and entered a dressing room. I tried on bra after bra and none of them worked. They held their shape like Wonder Woman’s breast plate, yet my breasts swam in them. I rang the bell for assistance. When the clerk appeared, I expressed my dismay silently. She looked at my breasts, ran her finger between my skin and the bra’s fabric and said, “These are too big for you.”

Wait! What? These bras were my size! Or, as it turned out, my pre-divorce size, before I'd lost weight. The clerk measured me and we discovered that I had dropped a full cup size. 

She took all the bras away and brought them back in a smaller size. They looked much better on me. In fact, they were quite bold and enhancing! I bought two of them and a number of matching panties, feeling newly single, youthful, and, in a way I can’t explain, French. I have rarely worn the bras since (they are a bit “too much”), but I still love them. They symbolize that vulnerable time when I began adorning myself with lovely things for my own pleasure.

The Bathing Suit

I soon needed a bathing suit. The last bathing suit I’d purchased was in Daytona, under duress, my ex-husband and I hissing at each other in the dressing room after I insisted he come in to give me his opinion. I’d settled on a bikini then, but now I wanted something more elegant. Still in my post-divorce skinny faze, my curves were diminished. I flipped through the racks of bathing suits at Sears, metal hangers clicking against each other. 

I settled on four styles and went to the dressing room. As a tinny-sounding 70s tune played in the background,  the peeling paint on the stall walls,  chipped aluminum on the door lock, and dingy beige carpet became the backdrop for what I can only describe as a midlife horror of self-discovery, my 50s laid bare.

Stripping down, I glanced at myself in the mirror. The fluorescent lighting drained all life from my skin. I looked thin, tired, unhappy.  I wrestled the first suit on, tugging on the spandex, fitting myself into the supports in the bodice, pulling the straps over my shoulders. I stood up straight, I put one leg in front of the other. I tried to trick myself into liking what I saw. I fake-smiled.

Never underestimate the effect of stress on your self-esteem. What I saw before me was a haggard old woman, thin-haired, stuffed into an ill-fitting bathing suit. I sighed and tried on another one, repeating the painful process of peeling off one spandex suit only to wedge myself into another.

I bought two of the suits and now, five pounds heavier, they are almost too tight. But I look voluptuous in them. Not perfect, but rounded, pleasing to my new husband’s gaze, and to mine. I feel happy and healthy and it shows. I wore them to our honeymoon in Barbados in November and remembered when I bought them three years ago. So much has changed.

The Wedding Dress

When I considered a dress for my wedding, I imagined something in a favorite shade of blue or green, flowing and sexy. But as we planned our small outdoor wedding, my fiancé commented that traditional wedding garb would look more striking against the natural background. As much as I resisted going there, I had to agree.

So began my search for a white wedding dress. My best friend accompanied me to several shops where we looked hard and left empty-handed. The prices were shocking to someone trying to avoid the wedding racket. I wanted a beautiful dress, but I only planned to wear it for a few hours, and I had no daughter to give it to. $1500 and up seemed a high price to pay.

I went alone into David’s Bridal and met the flinty gaze of clerks summing up how much I’d plunk down for a gown. I looked at rows of white dresses like so many costumes bleached of color. I couldn’t imagine me in them. Because of my age, I felt like an imposter. I was over 50, divorced, been through a lot of life. Was a white dress even appropriate?

And then I thought, yes. White is light, and I am renewed. I am ablaze with love for my man. This was my second chance. I could do this.

My friend and I made another date to visit  an independently-owned shop. We didn’t have an appointment, we just wanted to look at the sample gowns on sale. And then we found one, almost my size, exquisitely beaded in a flattering style. It wasn’t perfect. I glimpsed dresses more lovely, more fairy-like, but I knew they were out of my price range. The clerk strongly recommended I didn’t look at them. I didn’t. What I held in my hands was possible, and very, very pretty.

I tried it on and walked out to model it for my friend. I gave her my phone to take pictures. She tried to work my phone as a camera, then exclaimed, “What am I looking at? Is this you nude? Is this a nude selfie?”

Oh My God. That morning, for the one and only time in my life, I’d taken a nude selfie and texted it to my fiancé. I avoided the stunned gaze of the clerk as I grabbed my phone away. I set it up for taking pictures, and handed it back.  I asked my friend to concentrate on the task at hand and, for the love of God, please move on. She complied and we’ve never discussed the selfie since.

I bought that dress and had alterations done. I didn’t notice till the morning of my wedding that the padding under the breasts was uneven, one gel pad much higher than the other. I settled myself over the pads and hoped for the best. There was nothing I could do anyway, unless I ripped the pads out and allowed my breasts to swim in the very structured bodice, which I remembered from Victoria’s Secret was not a good look for me.

As I approached my husband on my wedding day, on the gravel road by the woods where we would walk a path together until we reached the hillside for the ceremony, I could tell from his smile that this dress was perfect, as was he, in his rented white tuxedo, also poorly altered, but not hiding from me the perfection that was him, my husband.

In these purchases—the bras, the bathing suits, my wedding dress—I went through some hell to find what I wanted. I had to focus on what really mattered, which was the experience they provided, whether it was a big laugh, the realization that my inner voice was too critical and needed gentling, or the understanding that despite the vulnerability of my gaze in a dressing room mirror, it’s only fabric. What life is all about, those connections we make with others, is so much more worth my efforts and emotion. I’m getting there with each crossroads clothing purchase, and that feels good.

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