When I was large, larger, largest, I spent a lot of time, energy and worry trying to not be one of Those People, who we have no right to judge, who we should celebrate for being so un-self-conscious and brave and proud of their bodies, and yet we never do. You know Those People--the ones who wear things that are tight, short, cut all the way up to here and expose all the skin in the world, and yet do not have bodies you see on the cover of Us. The women with the big, thick thighs and teeny tiny mini-skirts, the round and fleshy midsection and the crop top, all the breasts in the world barely contained in a halter top made of floss and a prayer.

I spent a lot of time wanting to love these women, who I always assumed and hoped were doing it because they liked their curves, their flesh, their skin, and who didn't care what anyone had to say about them, or how imperfect their bodies may or may not have been. Though sometimes it was hard to tell them apart from the women who just didn't understand their own bodies, and dressed cluelessly and in the dark and might not have known how to read a size label or have owned a mirror. I liked and wanted so much to be the former--totally confident in my own body--and wanted to be anything but the latter, because that kind of defenseless cluelessness scared me. Mostly, that ended up with me wearing turtleneck sweaters and ankle-length skirts, and a bag on my head and a full-length parka and mittens.

See, I always worry about humiliating myself; about leaving myself open and vulnerable to attack, and the fastest way to be attacked, as I may have mentioned a time or two, is to show your fat in public. But if you wear a lot of clothing, no one can tell that you're fat! It's totally true. Except for the part where that is a total lie. So dressing for me, all the way up and down the scale, had always been a dilemma, a chore, a balancing act. I wanted to be cute and sassy and show off the parts of my body that I liked--I had good boobs. I had an hourglass boom-bada-boom kind of figure ("like a Coke bottle," an ex used to tell me). My ankles were kind of nice, and my hands never did get fat. Somehow, I had avoided, more or less, the Curse of the Double Chin. So that was what I had to work with. How are you supposed to work with that?

In certain seasons, it worked out fine. The cold and dark seasons, mostly. A tight V-neck, long-sleeved sweater, a knee-length pencil skirt, knee-high boots, all, of course, in black. There we go--all the good parts on display, and all the parts I thought were bad and wrong and evil were cleverly masked by my brilliant camouflaging action that cannot be beat. I was totally a floating head and some boobs, and you could maybe make out the outline of a waist when the light was right, and you totally wanted me.

That does not so much work in the heat; summer in New York, September in San Francisco were always nightmares for me. How was I supposed to hide the fact that I was fat in things that exposed me? Hot weather felt dangerous, worrisome, terrifying. I made compromises: I wore Capri pants, and short-sleeved shirts, and I almost never felt pretty, but at least I never felt too vulnerable, too completely uncovered and open to judgment. And I looked at the women my size and larger, wearing spaghetti straps and short skirts and tiny shorts and I envied them a lot. I looked at the women smaller than me, and skinny women and slender women and regular-size women, with their bare limbs, and I envied them so much.

There was so much freedom for them, I thought--but what I didn't realize was how much power naked skin has. I had no idea how it could make you feel, and though I have always known how much your own attitude shapes the reactions of those around you, I don't think I had ever truly experienced that in such a conscious way, until recently, and I don't want to ever go back.

I went out of town this weekend, and I knew it would be hot. I packed T-shirts, a skirt, and at the last minute--on an impulse--I bought a dress (so inexpensive) at Old Navy. A strappy dress, low-cut, and right above the knees. I looked at myself in the mirror in the dressing room, and I was surprised to see that I looked almost lovely in it. I felt good in it. I stood there, riveted like a parakeet to my own reflection, because I did not understand how I could be standing there so bare and exposed--my arms, my legs, my sternum, my collarbones, the sweep of my neck and my shoulder blades. So much skin, and none of it perfect, none of it flawless and ready to be photographed for Vogue--but feeling so good about myself, nevertheless. Nevertheless? No, because. Because of the vulnerability of it--that nakedness is undeniably compelling.

I wore that dress out to dinner one night. I shrugged out of my jacket, when we sat down to dinner outside, and both my friends looked at me, and they said "Oh." "Oh, you look gorgeous." And I could feel the wind on my back and on my arms, and I sat up straighter and--instead of my usual ducking away and covering and hiding and denying everything you just said to me because I am too embarrassed to accept your compliment, because I am too incredulous and suspicious to believe that you could really think anything good about me and the way I look and present myself to the world--I sat there feeling powerful in my skin, and I said, "thank you."