J & I had a fabulous New Year. On the eve we had a couple over to celebrate our engagement with us. They brought champagne and a gorgeous handmade ceramic vase as engagement gifts.We took pictures and laughed and hugged, and everything felt just perfect.
After a while we all went to another friend’s house for a house warming/ New Year’s Eve party. I wore a skintight dress my sister had given me ten years or more ago to show off my new shape.
I think I have only ever worn this dress once before; (although I adore it and try it on a few times a year.) But it is a funny thing—ever since I became pregnant I have felt so free! I wear pretty much anything I feel like wearing these days. And I feel fabulously beautiful in it all!
I wore a feather boa out to a birthday dinner for a friend at a Japanese steakhouse a couple weeks ago. Other people wore nice things—it was a celebration after all— but I was by far the most flamboyantly dressed. One woman remarked that she loved boas but never thought about wearing them except as dress-up, like on Halloween. I said, “I just didn’t feel like wearing a sweater tonight, and when I put this on it just felt right, so I went with it.”
I’ve been “just going with” other things too. Scarves around my head, around my waist, around my neck. More vibrant colors like oranges, yellows, and reds. I experiment with new ways of wearing make-up. I let my hair be more wild. I feel so natural, relaxed, and confident. I love it!
So I got dressed for this party in a dress that I have felt too fat in when I still had a waist, silver shoes I haven’t worn since I was twenty-three, and in a homemade necklace of sequins that I made on the spur of the moment. Why not? I didn’t agonize over how my body looked, or whether my necklace was silly. I felt voluptuous. And glittery. And ready to put in my best effort to stay up past midnight!And stay up I did. I ate sausage hoagies and cookies for hours without the slightest worry that my belly might bulge. (What freedom!) I danced with abandon. I drank cranberry juice with tonic and didn’t miss boozing my friends even the slightest bit. Friends and strangers alike remarked how good I looked. And some of them didn’t even know I was pregnant!
Why did I deny myself this freedom for so long? Why did it take pregnancy to liberate me from self-consciousness, shyness, and self-doubt? Does it even matter now? Will this new attitude last? Will I be fearless and self-confident as a mother too? Or will the courage I have newly discovered slip out of me with the birth of my child?
I say a little prayer that it does not.
