Confidence is Key

This weekend I went to the Curve Fashion Festival.  I will be talking about that in a later post, but first, I wanted to talk about the plus size community as a whole and what you receive from it.

You start out, much like I did, by discovering plus size fashion blogs and positivity.  Slowly, your wardrobe changes, your confidence to wear what you want, not what you think you should wear starts to progress and take shape.

Along with finding confidence in myself and what I wore, along the way I picked up something else, courage.

The courage not to cross a road when you encounter a group of people, just in case they are mean to you.  The courage to go out and do something on your own, without having to have someone with you or needing to speak to someone every step of the way.

Before I found the plus size community, other than in my home town, I never went anywhere on my own.  I wouldn't say that I was afraid, more that I just knew that I could not do it.  I did not have the courage to take those journeys without someone being there.

I remember a couple of years ago being asked to go to an event in London.  It was the launch of new plus size collection in Soho and I really, really wanted to go.  But travelling to London?  Finding my way around on my own?  Staying over?  My courage disappeared.

So what did I do?  I looked at all the plus size bloggers, all those who inspired me in their confidence, their style, the way that they were not afraid to go out into the world and live it.  I took the inspiration they gave me and went to London.  I came back a different person.  They helped to create a new me.  A more courageous me.  Someone who was not afraid to go out there and LIVE.

Which brings me back to the Curve Fashion Festival.  After spending many hours in the company of amazing women, especially the wonderful Kate Willshaw and the fabulous Stephanie Cummings (thank you again for the phone battery charge!) I was left with a couple of hours in Liverpool.  What to do?

The old me would have gotten a taxi to the train station and stayed there for two hours.  The new me?  She went out and saw a bit of Liverpool.  In a bright yellow dress, enough red lipstick to last me a decade and a smile on my face; I headed out.

A stroll along the Albert Docks, The Tate, a pirate ship (sadly my damn picture didn't come out) and the Echo Wheel of Liverpool.  A wonderful day.

Lashes from Doll Beauty 

Creative Corner 7

It has been a long while since I have done anything in the Creative Corner series.

I find myself happiest when I write an opinion piece but somehow the creative writing draws me back in now and again.  

This is actually a rewrite of one of my earlier stories, which had been taken from a writing prompt of "The First Step".  

So here is "The Second Step".  

They say all you have to do in life is take that first step. One step and you can change your direction, your purpose and it can take you somewhere you only could dream of before.

I disagree.

I have taken many first steps in my life and I can tell you that it isn’t the first step that counts at all. It’s the second. The first step is tentative, non committal and still uncertain. The second step is your decision.

My marriage has been a series of first steps. In the beginning, the first steps were always taken with excitement as to what was to come. Our first date, getting engaged; buying a house.

As time moved on however these first steps changed. The first time he hit me, the first time he used my body without my consent; the first time I threatened to leave him; my first hospital visit. None of these steps were taken with my permission but they definitely took me to places I had never been before, nor wished to be.

There is another first step, sitting hidden away at the back of the wardrobe in the guest bedroom. A step of my own making. A bag, packed with clothes, some money, my passport. My bid for freedom.

The problem is, I have taken so many first steps, do I have the courage to take the second?  The one that takes me out of the door and to a new life. My hesitant first step has been sitting there, whispering to me in the black of night to escape.  Fear is my constant companion.

You need mettle for the second step.

So why I am I telling you this?  It is merely to tell you what you already know; that the second step is harder than the first?  No.  I tell you because you can waste your life away debating on that second step.  I tell you because I've taken mine, and you can too.  

I have left him.