I am now going to complain about my weight and my clothes, and you are going to be annoyed with me because Im complaining about my CLOTHES BEING TOO BIG.
For most of the past decade, I lived in the land of, Oh God, is that really me that I see in the mirror? I was a size 10 all my life, until I was a 12 and that, I thought, was the sum total of my middle-aged weight gain. Until I had a ruptured cerebral aneurysm, spent six weeks in the ICU, a year in rehab and then I was a 14. Which depressed me, so then I was a 16.
I was damned if I was going to spend any real money on those larger sizes, so I stopped shopping at Nordstrom and started riffling the racks at Target. Fortunately, my social life was such that it didnt much matter what I looked like when I went out (or maybe what I looked like created that particular social life?)
Then, apropos of nothing, I just got fed up with the way I looked. (Okay, it was apropos of the fact that my life had evolved to the point where I no longer had to shove food in my mouth to stifle my screams.) I signed up for Weight Watchers where I learned that cheese was not my friend. Nor was peanut butter. Or bread. Or baked potatoes used as a vehicle for butter. Soon the Weight Watchers promise started to come true; soon my 16s were too big. Then my 14s.
Then I started to have fun. I went shopping in my closet. Because Im thrifty--or contrary--I had refused to do as the fashion mavens advise: get rid of anything you havent worn in a year. Thus, those 12s were living in the back of my closet . Some of them even still had tags on them, like the ones Id bought those immediately after my illness, before I began self-medicating with daily trips to Baskin-Robbins for double dip sundaes. Suddenly I had a wardrobe. Actually I had my wardrobe and I loved wearing it. Until one day when I put on a pair of size 12 chinos (for only the second time!) and they were too big. Baggy big. The same was true for my beautiful old-new navy linen slacks. I thought about wearing them even though, the same as I had worn them even though they were too tight. But I couldnt get past that image in the mirror, the older woman whose clothes are too big. Her blouses overwhelm her thin shoulders and her slacks hang in loose folds from her hips. There is nothing about that woman that is attractive to me, no matter how fine her clothes. She is making do, wearing what she bought twenty years ago when she was last interested in fashion. She is, in my mind, old.Im not there yet. Maybe in another twenty years, but today, today I walked out of The Gap with size 10 jeans.About the author: Jane Gassner goes shopping in Northern California. She has written for many national publications and is the founder/editor of MidLifeBloggers.comCan you go shopping in your closet? Comment here.
