Prior to the wheelchair journey I had been on a weight loss journey for a little over a year. I am happy to report that I shed in excess of 75lbs prior to the wheelchair and continue to achieve small successes in this area. As you can imagine I have thought several times over how grateful I am that I lost that weight before I had to wheel it all around.
I had in fact just achieved a great milestone, a weight I have not seen since my mid-twenties. The ability to buy off the rack, have three times the stock available to me in my size and soon a long lost love for fashion began to resurface. A long time ago I was a tall slender body that could wear anything well. For a short time I mixed it up and shopped the thrift stores, making my own new looks, even did a little modeling. Then school, work, husband, kids, basically life happened and I lost time and interest in fashion. I became a sweats and T-shirt type of gal, one who was slowly packing on the pounds.
Once the accident happened it appeared as though any aspirations toward weight loss were shattered. This, coupled with my inability to mobilize for a few years, resulted in additional weight gain. I found myself more than 100 lbs overweight, literally broken, I had resigned myself to the fact that there was nothing I could do to change. I lived this life for too long, and then one day something just clicked. I struggle to find the words to better express what happened. The best I can do is to say that it was as if a thick fog suddenly cleared.
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| Amazonite Cluster |
My reaction to this moment was a profound realization of the obvious. It might take me longer, but obviously there was something I could do about my situation. I may never be red carpet material, but I can do a hell of a lot better than this! Yes it did feel like forever, but in retrospect I spent five times as much of my life feeling bad about it and doing nothing. I enjoyed that control and relished its glory; in theory I could go out and buy up all kinds of fun clothes. I say in theory because who the hell could afford to do that in reality. I did, however, find myself buying fashion magazines again and exploring a few thrift stores.
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| Fancy Garnet |
I was just getting into it when the chair happened. Do you have any idea how hard it is to look cool when you are sporting a wheelchair from the 1950s!
Now I am no longer “a tall drink of water,” as Kay Flynn used to say. I am a sitting all the time person who can no longer handle a pant with a button. I am not talking about the jeans I need to lay on the bed to zipper either; any pair of pants with a button is out. This brought me right back to the days of sweats and yoga pants right away.
That being said, I have attended a few parties and events since being in the chair and began to experiment with the clothes I had, along with some accessories and gave it a go. The last event I attended was particularly important, as it was a fundraiser and a few of my jewelry designs were being raffled off, therefore I felt a sense of pressure to appear fashionable. Luckily, I have a sister who works for Levi and it is her job, and her passion, to know fashion. With her advice and a few good fashion magazines I was able to construct a reasonably relevant and interesting look.
This little fashion success has ignited that old passion and I find myself daydreaming about ways I can alter certain items, make them more flattering and not have to choose between high fashion and sweats. I can live somewhere in the middle, somewhere that exists in the real world not in a twenty-something’s vision of herself and her fashion. I have to ditch the overwhelming accessory; the 1950’s chair just has to go!
~Any day now my new wheels will arrive and my new fashion statement will be, everything goes with candy-apple red and golden flames.
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