Friday, July 28, 2006

Why I Wear black

(This is something silly I wrote a few years ago that I just came across again)
I was at a hockey game with my parents. I noticed a really large woman from across the arena. She stood out for two reasons; she was probably the largest person I had ever seen at that point in my life, and she was dressed completely in black from head to toe. In a sea of Team colors, Yellow and Green, her enormous black shape stood out.

My dad leaned down and whispered in my ear, “Do you know why she wears all black?” He asked

“Because someone died?” I guessed

“No, because black makes you look thinner, so fat ladies like to wear it to hide their shape.” He said very matter-of-factly

I looked down at my own pubescent and awkward shape. I looked at my pastel sweater and white jeans, which were popular for eleven-year-old girls at the time. I decided if black made you look thin then I must look huge in what I am wearing.

From that moment on, every shopping trip consisted of nothing but black purchases. Black dresses, black pants, black sweater, black tights, all on a quest to look as thin as possible.

A few years later, on my first day of high school, I walked about ten feet through the front door and I hear, “Hey Goth girl.”

And so it began.

I had no idea that the fat lady wearing black at the hockey game was going to effect how people saw me for the next seventeen years of my life.

I like to ponder how my life may have been different if she had chose to wear team colors that particular evening, or if my father had not played into my adolescent insecurities by educating me on the benefits of wearing black.

It makes me laugh when I think about it now.

All I wanted was to look even thinner. I was inadvertently labeled and handed a whole lifestyle.

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