An Old Dress

I’ve been lax with my blogging this last week, but we’ve had lots of hockey, with both boys now fully into their seasons.  That translates to crazy busy!

DS#2 had his first-ever full ice game yesterday and I was so proud of him.  I hope to have time to do a write-up of the first game (with pictures) soon.  One of the other things that has kept me busy is the fact that DS#1’s team is getting ready for a tournament this coming weekend, and I volunteered to help with the “door hangers” that go on the hotel room doors so the kids know who’s staying in what room. I’ll share the finished product for that project soon, too!

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Meanwhile, I’m still keeping up with my training and my weight maintenance.  I ran 6.2 miles on Saturday. It wasn’t quite planned, but it turned out to be 3.1 miles to the “town hall” of the little village where we vote (not the same village we actually live in…go figure).  Obviously I couldn’t just stop there–I had to come back–so volia! A 10k!

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We had our annual Winers bonfire last Friday night, which was a lot of fun, and it gave me the chance to fulfill a crazy wish, one that had been around since my early teen years!

When I was a kid dressing up for Halloween, I remember my mother had a costume that she treasured. It was a Victorian-style dress that she made herself.  My mom was and still is an amazing seamstress.  She made the dress in 1967, when my brother was one year old.  That was four years before I was even born!

Even as a little girl, I loved history, and I would have given anything to wear that dress for Halloween.  It was everything a little girl could ask for–pink with lace and ribbons and just as girly as could be.

When I was 13, my mother deemed me mature enough to wear it.  I was so excited, I could hardly contain myself.  Unfortunately, the excitement was tempered pretty quickly when I tried it on.  Or rather, when I attempted to try it on.  You see, even as a teenager, I was pretty chubby.  Meanwhile my mother, at age 22 when she made the dress, had been a tiny little thing.

Even though I was only 13, getting that dress on turned out to be beyond challenging.  I did wear it, but only with the help of several chains of safety pins that essentially allowed me to let out the waist of the two skirts; a bustier that helped me pull in my gut; and a great deal of self-sacrifice as I pretty much held my breath the whole night so that I wouldn’t bust the already-straining buttons.  Not exactly a fun way to spend your Halloween.  That was the last year I went trick-or-treating, and the memory of how uncomfortable I was that entire night–not to mention how depressed–stuck with me for a while.  I tried the dress on probably four times in the 10 or so years after that Halloween, but it never came close to fitting, and meanwhile, I just continued to gain weight.  Eventually, I forgot all about it.

About a month ago, I was down in our yucky, 100-year-old basement, going through some old Rubbermaid containers for a document I needed.  I opened up one of the tubs to find a clear, zippered plastic bag that had been put on top as padding, and my mouth literally fell open when I saw my mother’s old Halloween costume inside.  I had completely forgotten that I had taken it with me when I moved out of my parents’ house in 1994, and somehow, that dress had managed to move with me three times since then.  I smiled for a moment as I looked at it, but I didn’t have time to pull it out, so after I finished looking for my document, I put the top back on the container and left the dress in the basement.

A couple of weeks ago, on a Saturday, I was thinking about the Winers annual Halloween bonfire and whether or not I would wear a costume.  This would be my first year at the bonfire, and I didn’t know what to do about a costume.  I really didn’t want to go out and buy one, and I couldn’t think of anything I had, until I suddenly remembered my mom’s dress.  I kind of laughed at myself, thinking there was just no way I could really fit into it now…could I?

Within minutes, I had pulled that dress out of its bag and put it on.  Not only did it fit, but it fit comfortably.  It certainly wasn’t roomy by any stretch (did I mention my mom used to be teeny tiny??), but it wasn’t tight at all.  It was like Goldilocks came by and christened it…it was “just right.” (Okay, not in the chest area–my mom didn’t grace me with any of her ampleness in that department :-P)

When I realized that this dress fit me–truly fit me–for the first time in my life, I didn’t cry or get all weepy (like I did in the dressing room the first time I tried on a pair of size 10 pants).  Nope.  Instead, I ran into the living room (where all three of the males in my household were watching Michigan football) and began jumping up and down, spinning around and shouting, “It fits! It fits! It finally fits!!!”

DS#1 and #2 stared at me like I’d lost my mind, while my husband just looked me up and down, furrowed his brow, and said, “What in God’s name is that?” 😛  Once I explained it to him, he was very happy for me, and he even helped me come up with an idea to incorporate a bustle, since the dress had been designed to be worn with one.

The best part of it all was when my mom came over for my birthday the week before the bonfire.  I tried to get her to guess what I was wearing to the costume party, but she truly had no idea, so I brought the dress out.  The look on her face was positively priceless.  She was speechless–she had no idea that the dress even still existed! She reached out to take it from me and she held it in her arms almost lovingly, looking it over and touching all the little details she’d worked so hard on 45 years earlier.  As she went over it with her fingers, she told me all about how she made it: the fabric she’d bought, the lace, the buttons–oh, the buttons! 😉  She worked very hard on those buttons.

I was so thrilled to finally be able to truly share the dress with my mom.  It was a great mother-daughter moment, and I could tell she was pretty happy about it, too. I told her I would wear the dress when I come over on Halloween night with my boys to trick-or-treat in her neighborhood.  This will be a first for me–I never dress up to take the kids out!

The neighborhood where I take the kids to trick-or-treat is where I grew up, and it’s the same one where I wore the dress that one and only time when I was 13.  As I sat down and wrote up this post tonight, I realized that I’ve had a lot of “feel good” clothing moments in the last 6 months.  There was the size 6 dress I wore for my “photo shoot” in August, and the size 7 juniors jeans I bought last month.  Not to mention the vanity-sized dress I wore to the wedding in July that was a size 4! 😉

Still, even all those moments don’t compare to this one.  Knowing that I will finally be able to wear this dress that has always been so special to me, and wear it the way I had wanted to wear it when I was 13–comfortably, without pins, corsets, or oxygen deprivation–definitely puts trick-or-treating in this dress at the top of my “non-scale victories”.  It doesn’t matter that it took me until I was 41 to get to that point–the fact is, the dress fits now, and I know that, Lord willing, I will have many Halloweens that I can wear it from now on. 🙂

Thank you so much for reading and for sharing this very special story with me!