Goodbye Skinny Jeans: An Obituary

For a long time I kept a pile of jeans that didn’t fit.

Some, my prized Abercrombie size 2s, were from high school, and after the first time I lost weight on Medifast, I rejoiced in being able to wear them again.

Some I bought during that first Medifast run, or the second. Every so often I went to Hollister and tried on all the jeans on the sale rack. It was a contest to see how small a size I could fit into, a contest I told no one about, because of denial, and then shame. My mother’s voice echoes in my head, saying, “Honey, this is a contest no one wins,” and she’s right, but it didn’t matter at the time. I was drunk on the feeling of buttoning those size 3s, stretchy victory wrapped around my hipbones.

For a long time I loved those jeans… for all the wrong reasons.

I loved those high school Abercrombies because they were high-waisted, and actually fit my body correctly. I have no hips. Well, barely any hips. The difference between my waist and hip measurement is about 2 inches. I loved every pair of Hollister jeans, because they symbolized victory (albeit temporary victory) at the end of one of my numerous weight-loss attempts. They were trophies I’d won in the battle against fat and unhealthy and excess and gluttony and insert more twisted eating disorder imagery here. I kept them because they were expensive and pretty and had low numbers on the tags, but more so because getting rid of them meant failure. Getting rid of my skinny jeans meant accepting that I’d never fit into them again, and that, in my eyes, was accepting defeat.

I know we’re always told to dress the body we have now. It’s in the same book with “be comfortable in your own skin,” “love the skin you’re in,” “take pride in your body,” “you are your own worst critic,” and other advice I agree with but can’t seem to internalize. It’s also logical, because in most situations, you can’t walk around naked. You’ve got to wear clothes. So they might as well fit, flatter, and make you smile when you see your reflection in a store window (which in my case means they are often neon, frequently sparkly, and include very short skirts). If you want to buy an outfit and make your goal to fit into it, go for it – some people swear by it – but owning an entire wardrobe full of clothes you don’t fit into is both unhelpful and alarmingly negative. There’s nothing like starting your day grabbing the one pair of jeans that fits off a pile of 11 pairs that are too small. Plus, since you wear that pair so much, you start to wear through them in the upper thigh area, and though it’s less about the size of your thighs and more about the fact that you’re wearing the same pair every single day, as a result, you spend the entire day hyperaware of your thighs rubbing together when you walk. 

From a financial perspective, dressing the body I have right now would be an expensive undertaking for me because every five seconds my body has a new “right now.” Sometimes, it is completely different at noon than it was at 7 a.m. If healthy bodies fluctuate, consider the bodies of people who have been actively yo-yo dieting since freshman year of college, with disordered eating habits tracing back to sixth grade. Some months every day of my period is a different level of bloat. There aren’t enough clothes in the world to account for the weirdness that goes on inside my body on a daily basis. Even if there were, I can’t afford them, and I certainly have nowhere to put them.

I work at a day camp, and on 70s dress-up day I had a brilliant idea. I rounded up my flare leg skinny jeans and offered them up to the guys as costumes. As I watched teenaged and 20-something dudes parading around in my denim victory trophies, it dawned on me: I’m utterly ridiculous.

They’re Abercrombie jeans from 1999. I bought those jeans when people were still worried that Y2K was going to transform all of our technology into steaming piles of gooey red mush (okay maybe not exactly, but forgive me because I just caught up on True Blood). I bought those jeans before I kissed a boy, drove a car, cheated on a Spanish test, or left the country. I bought those jeans before I lifeguarded, taught swimming, and found my calling teaching English. I bought those jeans the year 10 Things I Hate About You was released, but years before I took a page out of Julia Stiles’ character’s book and danced on tables in Munich, Berlin, Rome, Prague, Dublin, Doolin, Amsterdam, and a tiny farming village in Southeast Holland called Well that I was lucky enough to call home for a semester. 

The scene that inspired a lifetime of dancing on tables.

I bought those jeans the same year I bought a pair of platform Velcro sneakers from Costco and wore them under those jeans. PLATFORM. VELCRO. SNEAKERS. FROM COSTCO. I’m going to take a moment and let that sink in.

They looked something like this. Except worse. 

People change. Bodies change. Careers, cities, relationships, and styles change (see above picture: platform Velcro sneakers). Dreams change. Lives change. And so should denim. 

Everything changes, and that’s a good thing. Maybe that means one day, if I work hard enough, my relationship with my body and myself will change.

But I’m starting small.

Goodbye skinny jeans. 

PS:

What Would My Mom Say: Gossip Girl Edition

My mom’s pretty awesome. She’s witty, brilliant, articulate, and able to effortlessly deliver authentic one-liners with perfect comedic timing. Interestingly enough, that sentence describes my father just as accurately (stay tuned for a later blog post, titled, “Daughter of mine, your skirts are too short: a collection of one-liners where comedy meets overprotective father”).

But back to my mother. We’re super close, and we talk constantly, but even when I’m not with her, I find myself thinking of how she would comment on a given situation. Halfway through an episode of CSI: Miami, when Calleigh Duquesne steps onto a crime scene, before I can stop myself, I’ve blurted out, “What is she wearing? They’re in a salt marsh and she’s wearing a white pantsuit? And is that decolletage really necessary? You’re examining a dead body for gunshot residue. What’s with the breasts on display?” (See examples below).

Frantic, I clap my hand over my mouth and sneakily side-eye everyone in the room. Did anyone else notice that my mother’s words just came out of my mouth?

Someone usually says, “Why are you looking at me funny?” because my side-eye is not sneaky or subtle at all, despite my efforts. Then I explain that I was wondering if they noticed that I just channeled my mother so eerily, hence the awkward side-eye, and of course no one cares because my mother and I speak and gesture identically, use the same voice, and say many of the same things, so there’s not really much of a difference between us, and everyone here knows my mom and loves her anyway so it isn’t weird that I’m channeling her, until I make it weird by explaining it in excessive detail when no one would have noticed in the first place because the only person who knows I’m channeling my mom is me because I’m inside my head and I know that I 100% don’t care what color suit Callie wears or if her tatas are hanging out of it. Then I make things worse by writing about this experience using a Law&Order SVU-style heinous run-on sentence so now when my mother DOES read this blog, she’ll call me, and judge me for my terrible sentence structure.

Looking forward to hearing from you Mama!

Long story long, I sometimes hear my mom’s hypothetical commentary at the most random of moments. I am currently binge-watching Gossip Girl (season 3 NO SPOILERS), and the following is a synopsis, then a list of things I think my mom would have said had she been watching this episode with me.

Season 3, Episode 15: The 16-year-old Virgin

My synopsis: 

Vanessa and Dan try to navigate the murky “best friends who slept together” waters with about as much success as any of us had in that same ocean in high school/college. Jenny contemplates losing her virginity to a drug dealer, and Serena, Rufus, Lily, Blair, and Nate conspire to show her that he’s a bad guy and to stay away from him. Lily and Rufus deal with relationship stuff that no one cares about because they’re old. Chuck’s mom resurfaces from the grave, bringing with her his abandonment issues and Blair waxes sad poetic that he’s not confiding in her. Serena tells everyone she was a slut at age 16, and is surprised when no one says, “No you weren’t.” Female employees accuse Chuck of sexual harassment, and clearly it’s unfounded because it’s not harassment if it’s CHUCK BASS because everyone wants a piece of that. Everyone. Man. Woman. Chimpanzee. Chuck Bass love knows no bounds. There is a party for some reason. Everyone awkwardly congregates in Brooklyn. Greek food. Couture. Picket lines. Smoldering Chuck Bass stares. THE END.

What Would My Mom Say? 

It's a weeknight. Don't they have homework? 

Don’t they go to school? They show the dorm room, but couldn’t they at least have them leaving a lecture hall once an episode? Is it that difficult to allude to learning taking place?

So all of these characters have dated each other? How many times? Don’t they know anyone else? Was high school/college like that for you honey?

*Answer: Yes.

Look at that cropped coat Serena’s wearing. Why won’t you wear anything like that?

*Answer: Because I have no torso or waist. Duh.

It’s nice to see some women with smaller chests on television.

LOOK AT THAT FLOWER ARRANGEMENT. FLAWLESS.

Look at that flower arrangement. HEINOUS.

Are any of the characters Jewish?

That’s funny. The Humphreys are supposed to be the ones without money, but that Brooklyn loft costs a fortune.

See honey? Their skirts aren’t all short. Learn from them. Please.

After Blair says, “Serena you haven’t eaten bread since middle school!”

FINALLY! Reality! I’m tired of all these shows portraying these skinny minnie women eating deep fried carbs all the time.

Everyone is wearing too much makeup. Absolutely everyone. Awful.

That coat is to die for. To. Die. For. I think it's Burberry.

Chuck Bass is definitely more attractive than Nate Archibald. Nate’s so girly. He has petite features. Kind of like every man you ever dated from age 14-20. Why did you pick all of these girly men? Thank goodness you’ve moved on from that phase.

A dorm-sponsored party for freshmen would never allow alcohol and would never be that nice.

*She’s 100% correct on this one.

DO THEY EVER GO TO CLASS? EVER? EVEN ONCE?

What does Serena.. do.. exactly? Other than being a yienta (Yiddish for busybody).

Honey, you’re prettier than any of these women. And I’m not just saying that because I’m your mother.

*False, but I’ll take it.

I’ll be right back.  

Twenty minutes later, I’d find her in another room of the house, having started a completely different activity because she couldn’t sit still through 40 minutes of a teen drama from 2010. Fact.

SO there you have it. What do you think? Have you ever thought about how YOUR mother (or father) would comment on one of your beloved TV shows?