When I was a kid, my Aunt Caryl sent me a pink nightgown with “Victoria’s Secret” stitched across the front for my birthday one year. It was the first thing I’d ever owned from Victoria’s Secret, and at this point, it’s a good bet that whatever secret she’s hiding should stay that way.
I still wear it, because it’s so soft that I can’t bear to part with it. It’s oversized and hangs limply just below my knees. It used to be a cute nightgown for a preteen girl, but over the last thirty-odd years, it’s been pummeled into a limp sack of sadness.
I call it Old Faithful, and I pull it out when I’m not feeling well and don’t want to be touched. When the cramps overtake me, I slide it on over my bloated body and it’s like the proverbial Red Tent of yore. Do not come near me, husband. I am unclean.
This nightgown provides an impenetrable fortress of solitude around my body. It saves me from penetration of any kind. Stay back. Back, I say. I use Old Faithful for my period, the flu, post-surgical situations, and any time I need to get out of Bonetown.
I pair it with my postpartum undies from twelve years ago, which I’m slightly embarrassed to admit, I wear quite regularly. These cotton boyshorts came in a six-pack from Target, and at the time they fit just high enough on my hips not to chafe my fresh c-section scar. These days they hang off me like actual shorts and I may or may not have worn them outside a couple times, hoping they read as shorts to the neighbors from a distance and not super-stretched out underwear that’ve seen better days. Actually, they have no better days. These puppies have seen me at the worst of times and lived to tell the tale. READ THE REST HERE
