I have a black tie event tonight (it's the NY Intellectual Properties Assn's Annual Judge's Dinner. . . a.k.a. "The Patent Prom"). :) I really, really did not want to buy another gown for this event, given that I'd only be able to wear it once, in all likelihood.
So. . last weekend, I tried on the beautiful midnight blue gown that I wore on Halloween (there is a photo posted from back in Oct.) and it still looks decent. HOWEVER, I must have spilled something on it, since it had a spot that I hadn't noticed. I took it to the cleaner and said that I had to have it on time for a Friday event. I thought that meant Thursday night delivery (my cleaner is in my apt. building and they give the clothes to the valet service when they are ready. . believe me, I know how ridiculous this sounds). :)
Thursday night I get home and . . no dress. Cr*p!! I wanted to make sure the spot was out on Thursday so that I could emergency shop on Friday if necessary. So, I decided to go through my closet for backups. It wasn't pretty, people.
The brown dress I wore to my friend Sharon's wedding (there's even a photo of it in an early post) is totally too big. It just looks bad. . loose in all the wrong spots. And, this pretty bustier/long black skirt combination that I bought to wear to my cousin's September 2004 wedding is still too tight (WAY too much cleavage for a work event). And there wasn't anything else that was a viable option.
I was kind of stressed last night -- what if the dress doesn't come in?? What if it still has a big spot on it? (A: I'm wearing it with the spot and pretending I got it that night. . ) :) Long story less long? It's totally fine -- it's here, the spot is gone, and I'm good to go! WHEW.
I will admit that this event has been a stressful one for me. I'd managed to skip it for about 7 years, but at my current firm, it's a must-attend event. It's also the one time during the year that I am bound to run into a TON of people I've known through the years. And, given that I hadn't seen many of them for years (i.e. years when I put on a significant amount of weight), I was always nervous about how people would react when they saw me.
The thing is, the people I was worried about knew me when I looked like this:
This is me with my friend Sascha back in the summer of 1996, when I worked as a summer associate at my first firm.
This is another photo from the same summer. . . I was about 145 lbs then. . . a great weight for me, and I felt pretty darned good.
Last year, I ran into one major @$$hole from my old firm (he was born that way, so I don't take it too personally), and he was really drunk. He didn't recognize me at first, so I said "Hi, X . . How are you?" He drunkenly looked at me and realized who I was. If you could have seen the way he looked at me, I am sure you would have wanted to smack him. Clearly, he was thinking "Holy S, have you put on a TON of weight!" I'm not imagining this or being overly sensitive -- it was really that obvious. This was particularly horrible, since we were standing with other people who I know and like, and it would have been impossible for anyone to miss his reaction.
So, while this year, I'm not exactly the spitting image of my 25 year old self, I'm feeling much better about how I look -- and future prospects for how I will look -- than I did last year.
BTW, can you BELIEVE that I thought I needed to lose 10 lbs when I was the weight I was in those photos?!? What in the world was wrong with me?
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