#24 Of Being Inappropriately Dressed For An Occasion

Adele had been struggling with body issues for quite some time.  Looking in the mirror and getting an accurate visual picture reflected back was equivalent to looking into a kaleidoscope that moved drastically with only the slightest motion.

It was not stable.

She was confused as to input and output of matter that entered and exited her body and how to measure such transactions. This sounds sexual in a way and it probably was, as she was 15-years-old, but sexual exploration and the bio-epic food atlas she was subconsciously subscribing to had no link that could help her navigate her well crafted neurosis. She was getting very good at it.

Her weight gain and loss paralleled her interest in long distance running which made it a chicken and egg diagnosis for anyone, including her mom or friends, who noticed the fluctuation. She was also getting to be quite a good distance runner in terms of pacing herself, and kept a runner’s journal that was edited by a famous long distance runner who later died of a massive heart attack. She loved using different colored markers to log her weight, distance and the visual poetry she encountered during her runs. Some runs were very beautiful as she lived in a suburb bordering great expanses of farmland and lonely back roads: great deep and high cornfields, stone houses set off in the distance and red barns, all peppered her route. Occasionally, a rabbit would scurry across the road and geese gently honking above making their way north or south. There was the occasional opossum roadkill which made her cringe but she expertly dodged several yards in advance.

She had a sense of independence, strength and omnipotence as she laced up her red, white and blue Etonic’s and hit the road.

Before the era of skinny jeans, Adele had discovered them and felt proud that they fit her. She also discovered overalls and a denim jumper: both hid her body. She wore colorful shirts underneath the overalls and jumper, but the jumper especially grew to be one of her favorite things to wear. It was a light shade of denim blue and had a soft touch. The shoulder buttons were brass and reminded her of the simpler days of kid's clothing.  As it was the late 70’s, baggy, denim loose fitting, hippy things were in fashion, so she fit right in.

When Adele snuck food she ate a lot of it.

One of her favorite things to gorge on was graham crackers. She liked dipping them in milk or sucking on them until they got soggy and the perfect consistency to devour. They were also great with peanut butter and jelly and the sugar cinnamon grahams were excellent on their own.  Her mom kept several boxes of them in the pantry and was stumped as to why they were always gone. Adele liked to screw around with her mom and never told her that she was eating them. This dynamic probably related a lot to her eating issue, but again, not as interesting to Adele at this time as it was to mess with her mother. It was more of a test and her mom was definitely failing. All this went on in the classical sense, passively. Missing graham crackers, long runs, weight gain and loss and an overall surly attitude from Adele.

When Adele’s parents informed her they were all invited to a family friend’s formal wedding Adele rolled her eyes so dramatically her mom could hear them move in her head.

“We’ve been invited to the Smith wedding and you’re coming.”

“Okay. When is it?”

“The beginning of June.”

Adele performed a quick season/weather calculation in her head: warm weather+lighter clothes = might reveal her body.

Panic.

“Um, what if I don’t want to go to the wedding?”

“Why would you not want to go? The Smith’s are our dear friends. We’ve known them forever and Carly Smith would be so sad if you didn’t show up. She’s always liked you so much, Adele.”

Adele picks up dominant force field emerging from Mother Ship and further panic emerges, setting up another line of defense: protective shield.

“Um, I’ll think about it.”

“Honey, there is nothing to think about. I told them we are going and it will be a classic Smith party” (code for: super extravagant, a memory maker, one for the books because Adele’s family cannot afford affairs like the Smith’s and live vicariously through these luxuries).

This, of course, gets under Adele’s 15-year-old skin even more than she thought was possible given what was already under her skin concerning mom.

“Okay. I’ll go.”

When the wedding day arrived her mom and dad were getting dolled up and the night before Adele had forgotten about the impending nuptials and ate quite a few graham crackers. There was no way she was wearing something appropriate for the wedding. She knew exactly what that would mean; something airy and pastel and revealing more of her body she wanted to ever expose.

She put on her jumper. It was clean.

“You aren’t wearing that.”

“Oh yes I am.”

“Oh no you are not.”

“Oh yes I am.”

“Then we are going without you.”

“Okay.”

Adele never went to the wedding and never heard another word about it.