Clothes Shopping and Fucked-Up Body Image

Fall is my favorite season here in the Northeast for two reasons: the scenery and the shopping. I adore shopping for sweaters and footwear, just like I enjoy being outside in the parks or in the mountains Upstate or apple picking in New England. So yesterday Mr. Smooth and I decided it was time for some shoe shopping and checking out the newly renovated Rego Park Mall out here in Queens. It was quite a windy day but we enjoyed it because we found a food market with cheap, healthy foods, I got a new bag from TJ Maxx and we walked back to the mall in Elmhurst for footwear: I bought a pair of gray and pink Vans and small brown wedges by Rocketdog, while Mr. Smooth got bold by purchasing some purple and black Vans and an interesting black and red pair of Globe sneakers. As you can see, we share a great love for footwear and both love shopping for jackets and other accessories. But clothes is a different story.

I'm a petite person. I'm under 5'5 and while I'm not a size zero, I'm quite "skinny" yet still round in other places. I have to be very careful when it comes to picking clothes because I don't want my chest to be stared at in a meeting or for my bottom to be fixated on. I'm not ashamed of my features because I have to work with what I got; but I also recognize that certain things won't fit the way they have been modeled to fit, if you know what I mean which is where I get screwed in my mind. And since I don't have money like that to constantly buy expensive clothes that would cater to my body to the fullest, shopping at places like H&M can give me high levels of anxiety.

I should probably mention that I still suffer from body image issues, leftovers most likely from growing up and being made fun of for my body as well as dealing with anorexia as a teenager. I have a thin build but my weight has gone up and down, and I love to eat but constantly had to be aware of what I ate for fear of gaining any weight. My uncle nick-named me String-bean when I was a kid and my grandmother and father go on about how fat I was as a baby. Whenever I came back from a vacation or something and saw my mother, she constantly commented on whether I had gained weight or not. While in college she told everyone I had gotten fat (while my Nana put it as "I got curvier) and when I see my cousins now they make a lot of comments about how "beautifully thin" I am which honestly rubs me the wrong way. My father once told me that I looked "bigger" for some reason and I was so upset with him that I actually said something and he is now very careful with his comments. Recently my stepmother saw me and said that I had lost a lot of weight and was I on a diet (in which case made me feel like I had to stuff my face at the house because I thought maybe I was getting too skinny) I struggle sometimes with being happy with my body; I appreciate it but then I still watch my curves like a hawk although I am mostly happy with my size and shape at the moment.

So back to shopping yesterday and why I hate shopping for bottoms at certain stores: I went to H&M because I do need some more bottoms to rotate for work. I picked up a nice pair of pants and a short but fun skirt. I know that H&M bottoms do not fit me the same way if I bought some pants at say, Macys, so I sized up. Apparently that wasn't enough. I'm in the dressing room panicking because I could not get those pants over my thighs. I had to calm myself down enough to remember that this always happens and that I should not take this to mean that I should feel guilty about how much and how often I eat. I was able to take the pants off and remember that I should probably just get another size up, which worked just fine. A similar thing happened when I was being sized for a dress, when I panicked because I was measured at 2 sizes up, on top of the tailor clucking his tongue and going, oh you're between two sizes and I don't want  you to be. I'll just make it smaller you'll probably lose some inches by then O__o . A friend calmed me down and said dresses run smaller so that was fixed. But I felt so silly and realized how insecure I still am about my size and weight based on others.

I realize that most of these comments are Concern Trolls, and that irritates me. I'm told I'm too skinny, that my ass is too big for my size, that it's too small for a Puerto Rican like Mr. Smooth to like, that my chest is HUGE, that I'm too scrawny for a colored girl, asked if I eat full meals, blah blah blah. I need to keep them out of my head! I just want to be healthy, and I wish that I would stop letting H&M fuck with me.