I’ve lost two stone and still have two stone to go, so it currently feels as if everything is either too big or doesn’t quite fit yet!
Project Chrysalis, as I’ve christened it because I do like a project with a snappy name and lots of lists that I can tick things off on, is moving along nicely. The only clothes I now have are ones I really, really like, in colours that suit me. All my jewellery is sorted out and I’m still trying to work out why I’ve got so many necklaces when I don’t often wear them. I’m wondering if people have given me them over the last forty years or so because they don’t see me wearing them and think I ought to, and making an effort to wear them, although I'm not sure if they're me, or who me is these days.
It’s a funny old business losing so much weight that you don’t have a choice about replacing your whole wardrobe. In some ways, it’s a chance to reinvent myself. In others, it makes me think about how long it’s been since I had the luxury of time to do that sort of thing and what it means that I hid behind baggy, dark, boring clothes as if I didn’t want to be seen. Is it linked to me being one of the few people in the universe who doesn’t take selfies? (Although I am starting to take a couple of them on the same day each month and it’s noticeable that my face and body are changing shape.) Or was it somehow wrong to take time for myself when I ‘ought’ to have been caring for other people, especially when it felt as if all the professionals were lining up to expect more from me during Covid and the services haven’t been reinstated afterwards. Or is it that being immunosuppressed means I don’t go to the sort of places where I can get dressed up any more? And what does ‘dressed up’ mean these days anyway?
I do know I’m not spending massive amounts on clothes till my weight has stabilised and I know what my new style is so I’m buying from eBay and charity shops and trying looks out. In a lot of ways, it’s like meeting a new character when I’m beginning a book. It starts with an idea, maybe an article in the paper. Then I know I need a hero, a heroine, a problem and a solution. Then, usually at the worst possible moment, they start talking to me and I scribble it down and I’m off and the rest of the world gets less and less real.
I’ve been really excited about getting my backlog of books published, but come the summer I’ll drop down to two books a month, and I’m every bit as excited about all the ideas that are bubbling up ready to be written. Is it daft for someone who’s sliding downhill fast towards sixty to still get excited about new things? If it is, then I don’t care because it’s fun. So what's excites you at the moment?
