The little black dress

When I was seventeen, my mom took me to Macy's and bought me a very beautiful, and expensive, black dress. It was a gift to me for my eighteenth birthday. My whole childhood, my parents struggled financially and for my mom to have spent as much as she did on a dress that made me feel the way that one did, meant a lot to me.

This dress has become a dress of meaning in my life. It was the dress I wore to my surprise 18th birthday party. That night was the first night I felt deeply special, and very treasured. I still remember it like it was yesterday.

The dress was also the first dress I ever wore in front of a boy that deeply held my heart. Back when I went to Bethel College, a boy came all the way from Kansas to meet me. We had met on the phone some few months earlier. He took a bus all night long up to Minnesota just so that we could meet in person. I will never forget the moment that soldier knocked on my dorm room door, and walked forever in to my heart. I still remember what I was wearing (no it wasn't the dress), an orange turtleneck (that I still have, and was my mom's when she was young) blue jeans, and a brown jacket. Anyway, he came back before he deployed to the middle east for the first time. This was the first boy I ever deeply loved. It was instantaneous. Honestly! I told my girlfriends when I met him on the phone, that I met the man I was going to marry. They all laughed at me...but...who was right!? haha.

The first night that he came to visit me, before our first deployment goodbye, he wanted to go to a fancy restaurant. So I did my hair, and put on that dress. The impression it had on him has never left my mind...Never have I ever felt as beautiful as he made me feel that night. To him, I was drop. dead. gorgeous.

The dress has not fit me since that night. And I have never worn it for another man. Only him. Something inside of me has always prevented me from giving it away. It has traveled with me across the nation, through many moves. For the last three years, it has been sitting in the back of my closet amongst the items that will NEVER fit me again, but are sentimental.

You see, when I was pregnant with the triplets, my doctor told me I needed to gain 150lbs. I didn't quite gain that much, but I came close. I think I was around 139 ish or so...I kind of forget now. Anyway, I gained a lot. My body completely changed after the triplet pregnancy. I have so much loose and hanging skin...that it has been emotional for me to even look at myself in the mirror. Literally, it's an ugly site.

I have been working hard, in the last year to lose weight. After the triplets were born, I automatically lost 60 lbs. I came home from the hospital with that much less weight. But the roughly 70 pounds or so have still been around. I have gained some, lost some, gained some more. In the past year, I have lost almost 60 pounds.

Today, my husband asked me to try on that dress...the one I wore for him so many, many, many nights ago. I said, it's not going to fit me. He said, "I think it will". I said, it's not going to. It will upset me to try it on, so I'm not going to. But I have to admit, he had awakened my curiosity, so when he left the room...I got it out.

IT FIT! It fit me! I couldn't believe it! I walked out into the living room, where he was out, with it on. I leaned against one of our chairs and I went, "ahem!". He looked up at me from across our living area...and his eyes lit up. He said, "IT FITS! You look hot!" And then he started following me around the house just touching me in it (no...not inappropriately). He was telling the kids that this was the first dress he had ever seen me wear.

This sparked even more courage in me...I started trying on other significant dresses: best friend's bridesmaid dress (so big, didn't even need to zip to pull it up), second oldest sister's bridesmaid dress (too big), oldest sister's bridesmaid dress (too big, but could be altered), high school prom dress (it fit), high school dress I always liked (it fit), and on and on and on... they all either fit or were too big! I was shocked. I curled up in a ball on my closet floor and started crying. I never in my wildest dreams would've believed I would ever be able to wear any clothes from back in the day, after delivering triplets (and before having some sort of reconstructive surgery). Of course, they don't look like they looked back when I had a six pack, and I was all toned and fit...but with some girdle support...I think you wouldn't be able to notice at all the hanging skin... :)

So this dress...this black dress that is now almost ten years old is here yet again at a significant moment in my life. It's a beautiful day. :)