My First Halter Top

I've struggled with my weight for my entire 28 years of life. I've gone through phases of being very overweight to losing nearly 75 lbs at one point after college. But since the age of 13, I've never managed to be thinner than a size 12. I was constantly teased for being the 'fat girl' in school, but during the summer of my 13th year, I was actually beginning to feel more comfortable in my new, more womanly body. My weight had distributed more evenly to my breasts and butt, I'd grown into my extremely large head, and I'd developed a nice golden brown tan that year from spending a lot of time at the pool at summer camp. 

I remember first seeing the halter top on the rack at K-Mart. It was a cotton spandex material with a built-in bra, and the colors were a mix of neon pink, blue, purple, and green. It looked like tops I'd seen my skinny friends wear. All the colors met in a starburst on the front of the shirt then shot out with iridescent sparkles throughout. "This is a really cool shirt," I thought to my 13-year-old self and showed it to my mother. My mom had me try it on and said it looked nice on me and that it wasn't too revealing for my age. Happy to see my recent self-confidence, she bought it for me to wear on our upcoming family vacation to Myrtle Beach, SC.

I remember being very nervous to wear the shirt in public. As much as I liked it, I'd never exposed that much of my back and shoulders outside of wearing a bathing suit. Even then, I was often known to swim with a t-shirt covering my swimsuit. Didn't only skinny girls get to wear those kind of shirts in public? That's what I'd thought for so long and I was losing my nerve to put it on. As our vacation drew to a close, it was our last night at the beach and my mom encouraged me to put on my "new pretty shirt" for our last dinner out as a family. 

I got myself ready, pairing the shirt with a denim skirt, sandals, sparkly lipgloss, and a tiny bit of blush and mascara I borrowed from my mom. I looked at myself in the mirror and thought, "I actually look kind of normal!" I felt pretty. My tanned skin glowed golden brown and my light brown hair had lightened with the saltwater and sun. My dad also commented how grown up I looked in the shirt, wondering where his little girl had gone. 

We headed to dinner and I climbed into the back of our Ford Thunderbird. On our way to the restaurant, we drove down the Myrtle Beach strip. I sat behind my dad in the driver's seat and watched the cars come toward us on the opposite side of the road, some filled with families like ours and some filled with obnoxious college kids on summer vacation, drunkenly dancing in the car. 

We ended up sitting in slow moving traffic for some time. I looked to my left and saw a handsome young blonde guy, driving a black pickup truck, coming toward us. His friend was in the truck with him and as our car passed his, I looked up at him. Our eyes met for just a second and my first instinct was to smile at him. 

I smiled at a cute guy in my new halter top, full of confidence. A woman unleashed. 
But what happened next would shape the way I felt about myself, and how I thought men viewed me, for quite some time after. 

When I smiled at him, he looked down at me from his truck, and even though our windows were rolled up to preserve the air conditioning, I watched him mouth these exact words down at me, "Don't you smile at me, you fat bitch!"

As he drove away, laughing with his friend, I felt so exposed and wanted to be wearing anything but my new halter top. 

My parents were deep in conversation and had not seen the boy make fun of me, and I was too embarrassed to bring it to their attention. 

As we pulled up to the restaurant, I didn't want to get out of the car. I spent all of dinner upset, barely touching my food, and self conscious that everyone was staring at the fat girl in the shirt she shouldn't be wearing.

It would be several years before I had the courage to wear another halter top or something similar in public. The shirt I once loved so much, laid shining in the bottom of my dresser, until one day I finally threw it out. All because some stupid college guy on vacation decided to make fun of a 13-year-old girl coming into her own. 

To this day, I think of him when I wear something that makes my upper body feel exposed.