Body Image: The Jeans Edition

I bought a new pair of jeans for the first time in a long while yesterday afternoon. Add oddly enough, it wasn't even that traumatic. In case you somehow missed this in the many many posts I've devoted to the topic, I've gained a significant amount of weight over the past year so naturally, my old jeans don't fit very well anymore. Some people see the disposal of skinny clothes as a majorly symbolic milestone and all that, but for me it was never really a huge deal. Maybe because I am the opposite of a fashionista and generally don't get too excited about clothes to begin with. Plus, the Clothes Cleanse happened kind of gradually over the past several months as most of my jeans are a few years old and pretty worn out anyway. Plus with moving so often, I am perpetually trying to downsize my wardrobe and regularly go through my closet to donate/throw things away.

But in the past couple weeks, as the weather has cooled off enough to wear jeans again, it occurred to me that I really only had maybe one or two pairs that fit and were appropriate to wear in public. So after procrastinating for a while because I hate shopping and I especially hate shopping for clothes in bigger sizes, I decided that a trip to the mall was desperately in order. Had to give myself a little pep talk on the drive over about how you've probably gone up a size and brand-new store clothes are usually kind of stiff/unstretched out so don't freak when stuff feels tight etc. Additionally, I told myself that I was not allowed to leave without trying on at least three pairs and buying at least one. And whaddaya know, I got through it just fine. I ended up trying on several pairs; there were at least two or three that fit and that I would've been okay buying. I ended up only getting one because the prices were freaking me out but still, it felt like a victory.

so much swag

I'm aware that this is a lame post about something dumb and insignificant, but the important part was this: even though I wasn't super happy with my body and definitely had moments of EWW GROSS LOOK AT ME in the dressing room, I was mostly able to remember that I have a grown-up, healthy-sized body now and really, no one cares what it looks like. Pretty incredible to me how unimportant body image is to me now compared with the majority of my life.