It’s official. I am raising the white flag and naming Mother Nature the winner. I can no longer handle this energy-zapping, constant perspiration inducing, uncomfortable-to-the-point-of-no-sleeping, cranky-Allison-making heat.
I love that the sun is shining and the landscape is abloom in flowers and nice, healthy green grass. I love that chirping birds and fluttering butterflies that greet my dog and I on our morning walks. I love that it stays light out until after 9 p.m. In short I love almost all things summer, it’s my season and it makes me happy. But this year has been too much with the heat.
I can handle low to mid-20°C weather but when you get up to 27°C and above, I’m no longer having fun.
I’m sure being a heavier girl doesn’t help. There is no happy-medium temperature-wise for me; I’m either freezing and wrapped in blankets in the air conditioned bliss of my office or I’m sweating and wishing I could remove my clothes in the heat of my home and the outdoors.
Being bigger also means I face the daily challenge of finding a summer outfit that I don’t loathe. The clothes they make for us plus-sized girls are the worst. Generally we get two options too tight or a tent. There are capri pants that are as bad as wearing full-length jeans and are often too tight, which just highlights in bad spots and make us look bigger. Or there’s shorts that are either too short for most bigger girls to be comfortable in, or are the dreaded mom shorts that are baggy, ill-fitting and land at awkward lengths making you look like you have squished, little legs and a bizarrely long torso.
If you think a skirt or a dress is a better option let me just tell you about the pure, unrelenting torture that is chafing. Those thighs rubbing together results in the most uncomfortable inflammation that lasts for days only to be replaced by an unrelenting itch as it heals. In my case, the pain causes me to adjust my walking technique to resemble something like you’d expect after a long horse ride. It isn’t pretty.
Then there is the dreaded arm wiggle, highlighted in every tank top out there. I’m a friendly person but there is no need for the wave to continue after my hand has stopped moving, if you catch my drift. Don’t get me wrong, I think I’m a beautiful person no matter what my size but I could do without the reminder of my curves every time I wave hello.
Then there is the hair and make-up conundrum. I’m hot so I perspire more, which makes it next to impossible to maintain the look I leave the house with through the drive to work let alone the rest of the day. As a result I’ve decided to call my summer look a natural look, when in fact it’s more of a deflated rendition of an attempt at my normal look.
There are remedies of course. I should lose weight but that takes time and won’t really help me right now. I could get air conditioning but my husband is adamant we don’t need it and it only increases the utility bill. Honestly, he even has little fits about running the fan on high.
So I have given up and suffer through the heat. I take long walks through the air-conditioned goodness of stores open late such a Walmart. I wet my hair before I go to bed, which results in some hilarious hair stuck out in all direction in the morning. I freeze my beanbag I normally use for my back and place the icy goodness against my neck or forehead. I do whatever I have to, to make it through the unrelenting heat.
However, I know even as I write these words in far too short a time the seasons will change and I will once again be dreaming of the time I had to visit the frozen foods aisle for relief. Until then, though I’ll just enjoy the sunshine from my office and not think about the drive home.
