I dance in the dressing room
I dance in the dressing room
The college life habit that never wore off
Writer’s note: This post was originally published on Medium’s “We Need to Talk” on February 5, 2020.
Some people go in a dressing room and stare at their butts, hips, breasts, waists and every other area of their bodies. They want to make sure their clothes fit.
Me? I glance at those areas, too. But as soon as I button or zip anything that needs to be closed, I dance. You may not hear me doing it in the dressing room next door to you. I usually snap my fingers lightly and try to keep my choreography low-key.
I may lip-sync the words to whatever song is in my head the last time I was blasting my Spotify playlist. Or, maybe I have no song stuck in my head at all. Either way, I’m in a fitting room stall dancing away.
I’ve been doing this dancing routine in dressing rooms for so long that I don’t remember what it’s like to just try on clothing and leave. It started around my college years when I dropped from a size 12 to a size 6. In order to get my bachelor’s degree, I was required to take a physical education course. I hated team sports, so I took weight training. And the weight just fell off.
In turn, all of my favorite jeans started falling off my waist. I had to wear a jacket for a college BBQ so no one could see that my pants didn’t fit. I could dance, but I had to make sure I didn’t go too far. When I got money in the mail (thanks to my grandfather) to stock up on new jeans, I went straight to the nearest department store and tried on my favorite brands.
And then I did the Monastery (also called the Mono, or Chicken Head dance, which I learned from my St. Louis friends and Nelly videos) in the mirror.