Well, ladies
A woman on the train Thursday morning was reading a paperback. Not a phone. A paperback. She had a real coffee, ceramic, from somewhere, and she was sitting with her legs crossed and her posture open and her face completely still.
My first instinct was to dismiss her. That is what I do. I see a woman who looks unhurried and I want to make it small, call it easy, call it a life with less on it. But Thursday I was too tired for that, and what came up instead was the truth: I was not irritated by her. I was looking at a woman who had given herself a pause and I could not remember the last time I had given myself one. 😤
That is worse, honestly. The dismissal I know what to do with. The want I do not.
I was on that train in a wrinkled blouse I had not checked since 6 AM, holding a to-go coffee I was already resenting because it was not good, running numbers in my head for a 9 AM I had not finished prepping for. And somewhere between her station and mine I looked down at myself and realized my clothes were wrong.
Not dirty. Not mismatched. Wrong. The blouse was pulling across my back. The hem had shifted. The whole line from collar to waist looked like it belonged to a longer day than the one I was in.
Got to the office. Went straight to the bathroom. Reached behind me and found it: my bra band had ridden up. Maybe an inch. Enough to take the blouse with it. I pulled it down, flat across the bottom of my rib cage where it is supposed to sit, resettled the shirt, looked in the mirror.
Different shape. Same clothes. Shoulders sat wider. Torso looked longer. The blouse fell the way it did when I bought it. 💪
This happens to almost everyone and nobody talks about it. You put a bra on at 6 AM. Your posture rounds forward through the morning. The back shortens. The band creeps up toward your shoulder blades. By 2 PM it is sitting two inches higher than where it started, and every layer on top of it has shifted with it.
Your clothes did not stop fitting. Your foundation moved.
Dani posted that door-frame hang last week, the rib opener. I tried it Thursday afternoon in my office doorway, still in heels, ten seconds. When I let go and stood straight, my ribs were wider and the band dropped back to where it belonged without me reaching for it. One thing fixed the other. I did not expect that and I am still slightly annoyed that Dani was right about something structural while talking about TikTok. ✅
The fix is a check. Once a day. Midday, after lunch, whenever you can. Reach back and find your bra band. If it has crept above the bottom of your shoulder blades, pull it down. Flat across the widest part of your ribs. Resettle whatever is on top.
Ten seconds. Your clothes will look like you just got dressed again.
I thought about the woman on the train that night. She was not doing anything extraordinary. She was sitting still with a book and a coffee and enough room in her morning to just be there. I build systems for everything. I have not built one that gives me that. 👠
Check the band. Once. After lunch. It changes more than you think.
