Day 5: The Happiness Project

I’m posting yesterday’s happy thing today because I was in bed by 9 last night, goofy with tiredness. Which is fine, actually, because it still makes me happy, even after a surprisingly good night’s sleep (thank you, Thwacky!). It’s not just sleep deprivation that made yesterday’s happy thing groovy.

Guys, I’m slowly restocking my wardrobe essentially from scratch.

I came over to England in November with a puny luggage allowance made up in equal amounts of a limited supply of maternity clothes and baby stuff (and my pink pig spatula, espresso maker and rainbow measuring cups).

Now, I was pretty lucky in that I was able to wear my regular jeans all the way to week 41 as he was riding super high and compact, but all my tops had to be built for hiding a massive bowling ball. This didn’t work so well after he was born because, obviously, no bowling ball. Everything just looked a bit tired and stretched and threadbare from being worn so much. For the first time in my life, I found out what it was like to lose 20 kilos in a month. Things start to fit very oddly.

So I’ve started to slowly hunt around for an ideal new wardrobe, mostly on eBay and Amazon as Leicester’s sartorial scene doesn’t really excite me. So far, over the past month I’ve found a half dozen thoroughly groovy retro tops in eBay auctions, but I can’t really safely wear them until I ease up on nursing (damn you, high necklines and no front fastenings!).

All the while, I secretly coveted a full-priced mid-weight coat on Amazon. It was weirdly steam punky and perhaps unnecessarily asymmetrical and gothy-black, but I added it to my wish list and pined over it. I didn’t buy it, because on the website it said it fits on the small side so you need to buy one size lower than usual. UK sizes are quite different from North American ones- like, a UK 10 is an American 6-8 (approximately). This coat, however, topped out at my old Canadian size number. It would be, in reality, up to 2 sizes smaller in real terms.

I kept the coat on my wish list though, and kept pining until the other day when I snapped and bought it anyway. If it didn’t fit, I could always take up jogging, right?

It arrived yesterday morning and, gosh darn it, it fit. Hell, it was a bit loose even.

Eight weeks after having a baby, I’m somehow smaller and lighter than I was before I was pregnant.

So that made me very happy.

And the fact that, for the first time in nearly a decade, I’m able to find clothes I really like that actually fit me properly. In both China and Turkey, if it fit me, I was frequently unexcited by the style. If I liked it, it generally fit badly or not at all. Turkish short-waistedness meant most shirts left several inches of naked back and tummy exposed; Chinese lack of curvy hips or thighs meant absurdly billowing waists and sausage casing legs.

My wardrobes over the years were very hit and miss.

This time, however, I’m adamantly insisting on building it back up exactly as I want it.

And that makes me very happy.

The whole Happiness Project collection of posts can be found here.