Sometimes, the 'Come to Jesus' you need to have is with yourself...

Since I am definitely (Disney-measured and confirmed) petite(ish), I can vouch for two facts. The first is that at my height--which is about 5'3 1/2"--every seven pounds of weight is equal to an entire clothing size. The second is that because of the first fact, I, like many ladies of shorter stature, have learned to dress so that no one can tell that I've changed an entire clothing size.

Or in the current case, TWO clothing sizes.

I think that it all started back in the fall. From last October until the first of May, I was constantly in rehearsal or production of a show. And sometimes the shows were overlapping. At the pinnacle I was juggling three shows--I was in production of the first while in rehearsal for two more which ran back to back over four consecutive weeks starting less than three weeks after the first one closed. And then I went to Walt Disney World for a week. If you've ever done theater then you know that while there is a good deal of working hard, there is also a greater deal of drinking, partying and eating weird things at weird times. And that's pretty much the definition of Walt Disney World--especially when you're on one of the meal plans where you feel like you're working under a theory of "Eat Everything That Doesn't Eat You First."

And that's not all. I have spent the a good portion of the last two years--starting in March of 2011--working twice a week with a trainer at the gym. And it just so happened that he was in grad school and started his student teaching in January and while I am REALLY glad for him, that meant that any motivation that I had to do...well, ANYTHING went right the hell out the window.

And here's the thing...between the shows and the trip and the new puppy I didn't realize that I was getting, shall we say, fluffier until we hit high summer. And I was trying to figure out why every single time I was getting ready in the morning, I was turning my entire bedroom into a federal disaster area. That is, if piles of discarded garments count as a federal disaster area. Which they should. You see, I was grabbing things that I LOVE to wear and then discovering that the pants were uncomfortably tight or that the shirt was gapping at the buttons and that outfit was going into a pile on the chair in the corner and staying there until after a couple of days I spent the half hour before bedtime hanging everything back up in the closet of folding it and sticking it back in the drawers.

Because here's the deal: If you HAVE gained weight, there's a certain part of your subconscious which probably doesn't wanted to cotton to this development. So there were things that I had taken out to put on several times. And several times it was too tight or wouldn't fasten or just looked weird and I somehow took it out again a week or three days later and surprise! It still isn't fitting correctly. And it's not like I'm going naked or anything like that. I have tons of clothes. I have WAY too many clothes, in fact. My penchant for sale rooms and racks and consignment shops and thrift stores has pretty much guaranteed that. And it took the proverbial straw and camel's back situation to bring this to a head.

I have this Lilly Pulitzer dress that I got two years ago. It is my FAVORITE dress. I usually get a couple of dresses at the big Lilly sale at the end of summer, but I also usually get ONE at the beginning of summer. At full-price. Full LILLY price. So it's nothing to sneeze at in terms of money. This particular dress is made of a patchwork of all the Lilly prints from that season on the bottom and the top is blue and white seersucker. I have worn this dress and worn it and then worn it some more. It has the honor of being the dress I wore for the first day of my 2011 Disney vacation, meaning that all of my pictures from Photopass in the Magic Kingdom are of that dress (and me in the dress). In any event, I took the dress out and put it on and...well, it was sort of hard to zip. This has never been an issue. Not even a little. I mean, this dress was SO not tight that I wore it once when I was taking a trip by airplane. I used it as a TRAVEL OUTFIT. And here I was trying to zip it and failing. And to be fair, I did eventually get it zipped. I even fastened the hook and eye at the top. And then I leaned over to put on shoes and the hook and eye pulled loose from the top of the zipper. And that, my friends, was the final straw.

I contemplated for a while. I've had a lot going on--the first couple of weeks of June were NUTS and then my parents visited for a week and my sister is doing a fellowship in NYC for the summer so she's been in and out and I've auditioned for and been cast in two shows (as a dancer in one, so, HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!). And here's what I decided. That as long as all of those clothes that are too tight or gapping or look weird are in my closet, I'm going to pull them out and try them in the mornings. And the result is that I'm making a mess. And also since my closet is overcrowded as it is, I'm missing all of the things that DO fit me because after a little while I'm getting frustrated and going to the ironing/clean laundry pile and pulling something out of it and wearing the same damn things over and over. So last week, I went through every closet rack and every drawer and every single thing that I have that's too tight?

Is in "time-out". That's right. I have grounded myself from my clothes. I went to Target. I bought three big Rubbermaid tubs and if something was even a LITTLE bit out of my size range, it's in a tub. Now it's not like I locked the tubs in a tower far away. They're neatly stacked in the corner of the playroom, waiting. What's in those tubs? Every single one of my Lilly sheath dresses. All my Lilly shorts but one. My elephant pants from The Shirt Shop. My green gingham Nanette Lepore cocktail pants and shirt. All of my Ralph Lauren slimfit button downs. Y'all...it's a shit-ton of clothes.

And here's the thing...I am fully cognizant of the fact that any number of my favorite clothing pieces may not see the light of day this summer. And that's okay. If it motivates me to do something, well, then I consider this experiment a success.