Shorts and Skirts and Cycles, Oh My!

I hang up the phone and ponder what my friend just chirped: “It’s great outside! I am wearing a t-shirt and shorts!” Immediately, a pang of bittersweet regret comes over me; I almost wish the weather were sub-zero temperatures so that I can continue in my jeans-and-long-sleeve-shirt tradition that has grounded my whole existence for as long as I can remember. Great. It’s 70 degrees and perfect—only a slight breeze to refresh the near-stickiness of early Spring in Florida.

I’ve now spent 10 minutes lamenting and damning the weather—10 minutes with which I could have already been over at my friends’ apartment complex. So now I’m late. Fat, and late. Since I have rarely seen many people sit by the pool (on a perfectly warm day) in winter wear, I decide to buck up and find an outfit that celebrates the emerging warmth outside. The t-shirt and shorts solution my friend so brightly offered earlier is out of the question. I haven’t owned shorts since eighth grade, and even then I hated wearing them because of their malicious sneakiness—creeping and crawling up my thighs, restricting the circulation of both ligaments. Nope, not shorts. I plunder through my dresser, now aware that I’m almost 15 minutes late. I find an old swimsuit cover up—black, that is, since it naturally slims. It’s strapless, so I’ll look prepared for warm weather in a way that mimics those gargantuan (and bold, fearless) women who wear mumu-like bathing suits, strolling around the beach as if they had not a care in the world. You know—the Big, Beautiful Women who are (or pretend to be) so confident in themselves that no one around them is even phased anymore; they just become another part of the scenery at the beach. I decide that this cover up is the way to go. After squeezing into my snazzy little strapless sundress, I pluck a pair of earrings from my jewelry box—taking just enough time to ensure that they are huge and colorful enough to detract from my huge, not-so-colored thighs.

Lofting downstairs with the agility of a Greyhound bus, I grab my keys and head to the garage. It’s in my jumbled mess of a garage where I have a breakthrough: their apartment is less than a mile away…maybe I’ll ride my new bike there. Now 20 minutes late, I decide that a few extra minutes won’t be such a big deal. I slowly navigate my turquoise and silver, two-wheeled torture machine through the maze in my garage—past the grill and over a broken lawn chair. Finally, I climb on the bike and begin pedaling.

I’m not even out of my neighborhood before I am winded. Am I in the wrong speed? Perhaps this speed is too low. I try moving from second to third gear. It seems harder, but at least I’m moving faster. As I reach a stretch of sidewalk that is straight, I pick up even more speed. When I do this, I remember that the cover up has a slit on the left side, extending up just above the thigh—one whose function is generally to open and reveal a ravishing swimsuit underneath—only, this time, there’s no swimsuit.

Here I am, biking full speed ahead, wind billowing through my hair…and up blows my dress—revealing two shy rolls of belly fat. While trying to maintain control of the bike, I grope helplessly at the cover-up that, in its most blatant act of defiance, is cooperating with the wind to expose my imperfections to the world. I carry on this circus act for a few yards. Then I surrender.

I look down to see one thigh—the one on the side of the slit—gaining courage. I watch it push the pedal down, up, down, up. As it works, I see the ghost of its quadriceps begging to emerge from a lifetime of being buried alive under the strangling blanket of fat. Suddenly, underneath the embarrassment of my unsightly body jiggling from the exertion, I feel a small glimmer of hope: Maybe this choice to bike instead of drive will be the start of a new lifestyle, and this transformation—this rewrite of my history with my body—will make a great story.