Cleaning out the closet

So today I spent a few hours getting rid of clothes that don't fit anymore. You know it's amazing the things you find when you are cleaning things out. And it's amazing the reaction you can have to them.

As I was trying on a gold blouse that still hung in the closet with the tags on it I heard the following in my head..."Well the outfit is okay, but can we put a bag over her face?" Time to clean out more than one closet...

Just over 5 years ago I lost quite a bit of weight on Atkins (which as you all know I gained right back as soon as I decided I love bread more than being a size 8!) any way...at the end of that weight loss stretch I had a big meeting in Las Vegas. It was a national AKFCF meeting and there was going to be a formal dinner and dance to end the meeting. I spent a semi-panicked Saturday trying to find something appropriate to wear. It came down to two outfits. One was a black satin dress with thin little spaghetti straps and the other was a gold satin halter style top that was cut down to there in the front and had a back that was just high enough to cover my tattoo but that was all. It was much more va-va-voom than I would normally wear but this was Vegas and I had lost all of that weight so I was feeling a little daring. Brent thought I should go for it and wear the gold but I wasn't sure, so I had him take a picture of me in each outfit and sent them via email to my girlfriends for opinions.

Monday at work one of the ladies I worked with and I were talking about the outfits and she said, forward me the pictures and I will give you my opinion and so I did and didn't think about it again. So when I got back from Vegas I did my normal back to work routine and cleaned out the work email spam filter. One of the emails was my forwarded email of the outfits, thinking that it was a reply to me about the outfits from the person I forwarded it to I opened it to read what she had to say to me. Imagine my surprise to see a long thread of comments from not only other women in the office but a woman I had never even met. Now at this point I should have closed the email, but I didn't. I read every last word in there. And let me tell you, things don't get caught in a spam filter if they are all lovely pleasant words.

About halfway through the chain was a comment from the woman I had never even met, "Well the outfit is okay, but can we put a bag over her face?" Right after reading this the woman I had originally forwarded the pictures to came into work. She asked how my trip was and what I had chosen to wear. As I was trying to reconcile what I now knew and her butter wouldn't melt in her mouth demeanor I found myself bursting out into tears. I apologized (if you can believe it)and then spent the rest of the day in shock. This was the first realization for me that work was much worse than I had thought, you have read the progression in other blogs, but this was the start.

So fast forward 5 years and this morning I put that top on and that hateful thing popped right back into my head. So I started to wonder what other things are in there that just need to get out? One thing came right to mind...

I love to sing, love it. If you have ever ridden in a car with me you know I will sing to anything I know the words to. Between my Freshman and Sophomore years in high school my on again off again boyfriend convinced me to try out for show choir. I met with the director and he said if I made it through auditions and would take choir as a regular class then I was in. So I was looking at a schedule that would have Entertainers, Choir and Drama plus academics. Kind of an ideal thing for a kid that just wanted to be on stage. Well, sitting in the little orientation section during what would have been the week of auditions the doubt started in. I could hear my sister's voice in my head..."You sound like a dead cow." that was her normal response when I would sing. Which doesn't even make sense when you think about it. A dying cow? Sure, but a dead one? And then listening to everyone else singing I started thinking, there is no way I can do this. I don't have the talent for this. And I let the doubt win. I let her voice drown mine out. I made an excuse about not wanting to be to school at 7, but it was fear and doubt that did me in.

I don't have a lot of regrets, but those are two areas that if I could have a do over I sure would. I would have tried out, and succeeded or failed on the tryout and as far as work goes, you know it ended up okay in the end but if I could have a do over I think I would have commented on the email and replied to all letting them know that I had seen what they said and how it hurt.

I hung that gold shirt back up in the closet this morning. Maybe someday I will be brave enough to wear it in public (it fits again and I can still eat bread!) but for now it hangs there as a reminder not to let someone else's voice usurp my own. Clean out that closet.