Forever 21?

I went to the mall with my friend, we will call her Katherine.  If there is really a recession, someone needs to tell the nice people of Glendale, because they were all at the mall on Sunday.

My friend Katherine is beautiful. And much closer to 21 then I am. Although, she is a mom to an 18 month old, her body bounced back and she can still shop at Forever 21 with a straight face. I am so far away from 21 that I am embarrassed to even walk into the store.  Wandering the mall we had this conversation: when exactly is the appropriate time to walk away from Forever 21 and walk into the 22 and over stores?  We did not come up with the answer, but I can tell you, my time has come.

In the past, I have been able to find little things here and there at Forever 21, a t-shirt, those stretchy long tank tops that they sell for $2.50, a tulle skirt that I needed for a Halloween costume, etc. but nothing that, come to think of it, I have been able to wear out in public.  This could be due to the fact that I didn't really start shopping at Forever 21 until I was 40.

Here are a few reasons why women over 40 should not shop at Forever 21. In grown woman's sizes, a large is medium, a medium is a small, and a small is an extra-small.    In grown woman's clothes I am size 4.  Which in 1980's sizes is really a size 6/8, because frankly even when I was 21 I wasn't a size 4.  A size 4 is on the way to anorexic in my book. The only reason I am a size 4 now, size 6/8 in the alternate reality of real size clothes, is because I breastfed both my kids until they sucked every last ounce of fat off my Italian bones, and left me a size 4 (6/8) with saggy almost A/AA tits. Of course, I had to rip my daughter from my breast at almost 3 years old, she left teeth marks to prove it, to retain a little cush in my tush.  Katherine and I are on a rampage to find bras for post-breast feeding saggy AA titties with huge nipples and may have to design our own line of bras, because even at Forever 21 the bras are too big.

Even though in real life, grown woman's size I am a small/medium top, at Forever 21 I am a large because the large at Forever 21 is a large that is supposed to fit a girl from 13 to 21. Those girls are hardly large. From 13 to 21 you are still a little girl, with a nice shapely figure that hasn't been destroyed by copious amounts of beer or childbirth.  Your breasts are perfect, nice little waist, waif like arms.  The large at Forever 21 would flatter any young woman 21 and under.

I tried on a very cute, and may I say inexpensive, dress(?), at Forever 21.  This time, I was able to fit into a medium, and that's only because I starved my body of sugar during the 40 days of Lent, more specifically cake and cookies, and that is a subject for a whole other blog! So, I tried on the medium, and it was at that moment, when I was gazing at way too much of my  46 year-old legs that have those 46 year-old wrinkles above the knees (which if you look close enough, even Demi Moore has)  right below the cellulite that no matter how much I walk or how many eagle poses I do, neither will go away,  under that way to short shirt dress, when it hit me.  I am 46 years old, a quarter of a century away from 21, and perhaps it is time to say goodbye to Forever 21, forever. 

Oh, I'll be back. I have an almost 12 year old going on 19 who loves Forever 21.  I think she has already picked out her dress for the 8th grade spring semi-formal dance and she hasn't even graduated from the 6th grade yet.  So, I will visit, and perhaps purchase clothing from Forever 21, for my daughter who appropriately belongs in the store.

And because 46 is the new 36 and I'm getting a new tattoo in a few weeks, which will surely de-age me by a few years, which might put me at 33, and unless someone comes up with a store called Forever 29, I will wander the dark forest of the mall searching through the thick trees of stores like Forever 21,  for a store that carries clothes that are cute, but appropriate and if the skirts are short either they will cover my cellulite or show enough of my tattoos to distract you from looking for my knee wrinkles.