And, that’s me werking it with no bra and panties with a belly full of two dozens of oyesters, and a whole platter of seafood and roasted potatoes. I purchased this dress online and was so excited to wear it on vacation! In that moment, I suppose I was in a good place mentally and how I felt existing in my body. Me purchasing a sleeveless dress? Shocking! On the real real, when I pulled this dress out of my bag in Florence and put it on, immediately my mind went somewhere dark. All I could see infront of the mirror was my stretch marks, the jiggles on my arms, the rolls on my back with the cut outs and my belly sticking out in this tight knit. I took it off. Put it back on. Took it off again to put it back on to analyze my body from different angles. I kept asking the chicken man, if I should wear the dress? Honestly? He reassured me that I looked amazing but it didn’t matter what he thought because “I” didn’t believe it. I am not happy about my weight gain. I know with taking estrogen, my body holds onto weight and distributes fat differently. Then combined with emotional eating, it’s just not healthy. I don’t have to or want to “love” everything about myself. That is not reality for myself. And, for a lot of people. However, I don’t need to let my weight gain torment me. I had to make a quick decision. Was I going to let the opinions of others and how I’ve been conditioned to think about my body dictate how I felt in this dress? I went to a place of gratitude - how my body has been through so much and still continues to show up for me. That I get to exist as “me”. I kept the dress on and decided I wasn’t going to let these thoughts rob my experience. What some people thought about showing too much skin or the rolls in my back. They can go hang out at the gym to work on their “perfect” bodies 😅 I felt beautiful and walked around like a golden goddess, and ate all the seafood of my dreams. Wear the damn dress. P.s: IMO, Florence has the best seafood and red meat from all the places we visited 👀 . . .