New Jeans, Same Old Story
Here are some pictures of me in the skinny jeans I recently pulled from storage. They were taken the last time I was around this weight. I was trying to create a catalog of outfits I could refer to when getting dressed. My first thoughts upon seeing these photos are highly critical: My arms look really awkward, like they’re too fat to hang down straight. I have a double chin. All the shoes and tops look cheap (and are things I’ve gotten rid of). I look like I’ve been stuffed into my jeans and so the top half of me is all puffed up. These pictures are humiliating because at the time, I thought I looked good. What was I thinking?
I’ve officially decided to ditch the skinny jeans. They obviously trigger really negative self-talk for me. So I got some new jeans instead. I went thrifting and came out with a pair of men’s 501 Levi’s in a size 38. They’re definitely too big, but the size 36 Levi’s were way too tight. I rolled them up at the ankles, put on my black leather belt, and felt like myself.
I feel like I’m going through the whole process of discovering my style all over again. For some reason, my brain is a little slower than my weight loss, so it takes a bit of time to catch up. It’s as though by the time I figure out my style again at a new size, my clothes are too big and the process starts all over again. When will I learn? I felt really good looking at my closet yesterday and seeing the new jeans with the belt still in the loops hung next to my grey men’s pants and my baggy linen trousers. I felt like it was the perfect selection of bottoms for me at this weight. I went through that little dalliance with the white skirt and the skinny jeans, and then my sanity was restored and I got some new jeans. But wearing the new jeans yesterday (at the hole in my belt where I last wore it) was problematic. As I was heading into the house at the end of the day, I could feel them sliding further and further down until I had to catch them with one hand. My next attempt to wear them will involve cinching the belt a hole tighter and see how they look. But there’s only so much cinching you can do before they cross over into being too big. So I would give them 2-3 weeks, tops.
I feel like some people will read this and think, ”What are you complaining about? You’re losing weight!” For instance, Matt knows how desperately I’ve been wanting to lose weight. So when this issue arose, he said, “Isn’t it better that they’re too big rather than too small?” “No,” I spat back. Despite my prayers being answered and my weight continuing down the scale, I’m finding this whole process of dressing myself during weight loss extremely stressful. Deciding when things are too big, shopping for clothes for a new body size and shape every few weeks, trying to be economical about said shopping, and trying to look the way I want to look- it’s a lot to deal with. And that’s part of why I keep sifting through the discard pile: sometimes a certain look that didn’t work at a higher weight will mysteriously work at a lower weight, especially when you’ve changed other elements of your wardrobe.
For example, my size 3X, navy blue, J. Crew T-shirts have been my absolute favorites for the last 40 pounds, but I had one of them on the day I pulled the size 12 skinny jeans from storage. The T-shirt looked absolutely ridiculous in proportion to the tight-fitting jeans, so I’ve had my eye on discarding those T-shirts. But then I put one on with the new men’s jeans, and voila! It was perfectly oversized. So the T-shirts are no longer on the chopping block, but the skinny jeans are.
Now the white skirt might also be on its way out due to its utter lack of quality. I washed the skirt for the first time (which just goes to show how little I’ve worn it) on a cold, gentle cycle and hung it dry. It came out very wrinkled, so I had at it with the steamer. The skirt has elastic in its polyester blend, so I didn’t want to risk the heat of the iron possibly melting it. Apparently the steamer is just as hot as the iron and so it put some strange puckering in the fabric where the elastic melted. I’ve thought about trying to salvage it with a tumble-dry or a cool iron, but I’ve also thought about tossing it. The whole not-being-able-to-wash-it problem seems like a good excuse to get rid of something I’ve been on the fence about anyway. I love the aesthetic of a pencil skirt with an oversized top on me, but perhaps I might invest in something of higher quality that I didn’t score for 10 bucks at Boscov’s- once my weight has settled, that is. Strangely, I find the skirt in concordance with my style even though it’s more traditionally feminine than the skinny jeans. Weird. After all, there are skinny jeans for men, too. You’d think they might be okay for me, but the decision has been made. Again. Any item of clothing that triggers the onslaught of negative thoughts about my body the way the skinny jeans do needs to be eradicated from my life. And I feel so relieved. I don’t have to have that conflict with myself in the closet every day, toying with the idea of wearing them. I have new jeans now.