Bouncing forward

Yesterday I looked in my wardrobe for something to wear.

I tried on a few of my older dresses, then T-shirts, then jeans.

Soon they were all lying in a pile on the floor around me.

And so was my confidence.

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I’m a size or two up from where I used to be and things just don’t fit, let alone fit the same. So I went for my baggy linen T-shirt and maternity jeans combo. These are my safe options, my go to’s, my “every day when I’m leaving the house” staples right now.

They make me feel comfortably confident.

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But it seemed like such a waste.

A waste of these clothes of mine in that pile.

The clothes that are now too small and make me feel now too big.

Those clothes that waste space in my wardrobe and waste away at my confidence.

And I know this, I do.

This truth is not wasted on me.

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Yet I still keep them, all of them, in the hope that one day I might fit back into them exactly as I used to.

In the hope that the pile on the floor will be no longer.

In the hope that the my confidence is picked up and worn with them.

And it’s hopeless.

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But this is what we are so often fed as women postpartum.

That bouncing back is the goal.

That getting back to where we were before we became a mother or before we had our second or third or fourth child is the golden standard.

That fitting back into those old jeans without a wrestle is worthy of unnecessary space in our minds and wardrobes.

And it’s unhealthy.

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Is it not a potential outcome that I may never get back to the same size I was?

Or that my body isn’t meant to fit back into those dresses, and tops and jeans exactly like they used to?

Or that maybe, just maybe, my body has changed because of what it’s been through and my mindset needs to as well?

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We need to be fed this as part of the postpartum diet more.

We need to be encouraged to part with the old clothes more.

We need to be told to wrestle less and size up more.

We need to normalise “bouncing forward”, not “bouncing back”.

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Because while we may get back to where we were, we also may not.

And this seems to be a much healthier starting point.

From where I’m sitting anyway.

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