I thought I could blame the dryer and child laborers for the
fact that many pairs of my pants do not fit me anymore. But today that myth is busted to
oblivion. I must in fact accept that I
have relaxed my bodily dimensions, for today I tackle The Closet.
In The Closet are
several items that still have tags on them.
Sad but true. Oh, it's not too
terrible because most of those items were bought on sale, so I can convince
myself that even the clearance price on several items would've been marked down
an additional 25%-60%. But it is time,
my friends. It is time to accept that I
will never be able to squeeze myself into those clothes again. It is time to stop hoping and worrying and
fantasizing. It is time to stop
pretending I will ever get my money's worth out of these items.
The jig is up.
I try on everything in The
Closet except for the recent purchases, the ones I wear to work all the
time, the ones I know fit right now.
Some of the stuff I can even zipper, but the resulting horror show is
not worth the terror my wearing these items in public would cause. I actually resemble Frankenstein in some of
the stuff: arms jutting too far out of coat sleeves, belly-bulge making it
difficult to tell front from back in the side view while looking in the mirror,
and thighs showing a little too much from the too-short hemlines.
Oh, it's not all horrible.
Some of the stuff doesn't fit because my boobs have … well … I have had
three children. Several of the zippers
simply won't accommodate my chest any more.
I am completely okay with that. I
will gladly toss a new dress into the discard pile if it's because my breasts
are busting out. That's almost worth a
celebration, a dance, heck, maybe even a party.
For the most part, though, it's a little depressing to think
my thinner days have come and gone. I
exercise, I eat relatively well, and I've reached a set-point (never you mind
what it is). I'm certainly not going to
hit my judo-weight again, and I'm okay with that (I do still have my last gi,
though, just in case). The way I figure
it, the next time I hit Skinnyville will be if something is terribly wrong with
me and I end up in the ICU.
Besides, being a little more filled out allows me to purge
the old stuff and continue buying new.
After years of being in constant motion for the kids' schedules, I'm
finding that my own schedule, although still hectic, is a lot more
manageable. As a matter of fact, I can
wear a lot more dresses. This is not
only due to my schedule; it is also because I can wear shoes again after having
a bad foot completely rebuilt. It's
really hard to wear a dress with sneakers or orthotic shoes, but my closet is
rapidly becoming a designer shoes (bought on sale) warehouse. New shoes need new clothes. It's a wonderful circular relationship.
The major problem with The
Closet is the size. This is an old
house, over 150 years old, and it used to be a carriage house. Okay, the barn. There are no real closets here. I have three tiny make-believe closets that
are about a foot deep and three feet wide, except one closet that is actually
deep enough under the eaves to add a second bar to hang clothes. The limited space means I need to be very
picky about what I keep and what I toss.
So here I am today, just me and The
Closet, battling for control of the teeny space, trying to find a way we
can both get along.
The result is a bunch of small bags that will be going to
the nearest bin, plus one bag of dresses in excellent shape, many with tags
still on them. I put out the All-Call today
and believe I have found a taker to pass on these nice things to someone else
who might enjoy them. If not, I can at
least feel better that I tried to find a decent home for the still-tagged items
rather than just dumping them on Goodwill or Planet Aid (who will be recipients
of winter coats and bridesmaid dresses and a tweed suit jacket that cannot
cover my ape-long arms).
Today go the clothes.
Tomorrow will be the shoes. This
will be easy because all of my "before surgery shoes" are gone; the
old shoes didn't fit my newly-slim foot any longer as they were all broken in
to fit the Yeti foot I used to have. But
I have to organize the shoes by color, by style, and maybe even break out the
leather boots that I'm scared to walk in but had to have… you know, just to be
sure they still fit. Unlike my expanding
hips, my feet have slimmed down a bit.
After today's ordeal, things can only look up from there.
Watch out,
Closet. You may have had the advantage
today, but tomorrow --- you're all mine.
