Last night, on my way home I noticed a cute girl on MUNI. She was about my height. She had blond hair. It was styled yet messy. Her roots were showing slightly. They were darker than the hair around her face. But they weren’t the crop of a lazy gardener. It was the hair color of an active girl, one who spends time in the sun. She wore thick, dark-rimmed glasses. She wore a green sweater over a gray T-shirt. She wore fitted, faded blue jeans and a black belt. Her belly was slightly exposed, but by accident. She looked good. No, she looked great. Her clothing wanted to be there.
There was me. I wore a red over-stretched cardigan I purchased while I was in college. I wore jeans. They are blue as well.They don’t fit me properly. But I got them on sale in the men’s department. My cardigan covered a black sweater I purchased at Target. I don’t wear my glasses because I don’t need them. Even though I like the way they look. My hair is totally in need of a trim but having just moved here I don’t know where to buy bread let alone where to go for a haircut.
If my clothing could vote, it’d choose to be draped across a more attractive, active body. There are times I am forced to free my clothing from a fat roll. There are other moments where I am forced to separate my shirt from my breasts. It’s as if they’re always fighting. I hate pulling them away from one another while we’re in public.
I haven’t felt too good about myself, lately. And it’s amplified now that I’m new to a place, now that I’m different. Before we moved west from Washington D.C. I was doing yoga four times a week. I was also watching what I ate and following a pretty regular routine. And now? Now, I buy a yoga magazine and think about going to the local studio (every once and a while). And I eat donuts. I haven’t ever cared for donuts, but I have been eating them lately. And there’s nothing good about this cycle. Except that I’ve grown really very good at admiring other women and what they wear. Something needs to change again. Something.
I am discovering that (sometimes) all it takes is to notice someone on a train and be intrigued enough to explore imaginary trails. And to understand that there’s always room to change your real ones. I have always envied those who chase possibilities and discover new places without knowing what it was he or she might find, if they should find anything at all. Yesterday, as I caught my self-loathing reflection in a San Francisco storefront window, I realized I am living the life of a person I have at one time admired, one who explores change.
I’d like to believe that the green cardigan-wearing gal I saw on the MUNI yesterday notices her reflection from time to time in a storefront window and discovers how good she looks. And today, I’d like to take a moment to thank her for pushing my sorry ass into joining our local gym last night.
(Joining a gym means you automatically lose weight, right?)
Mihow 
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