return of the black jeans

S. and I live in a bungalow in NE Denver that was built in 1906. We love it, and are constantly working on it, but historic housing does have its drawbacks. The biggest one, as far as I'm concerned, is closet space.

We have two closets, one in each bedroom. That's IT. No hall closet, no linen closet, nada. Just the bedroom closets, which are deep but not that big, and we've managed to fill them completely with--shocker!--clothes, but only about 30% of what we own. The other 70% lives in our "dressing room,"which is really just laundry baskets and shelves and plastic drawers (ew) cobbled together in the basement. I don't get dressed without a trip to the basement. Most days I don't mind it. This morning, however, it sucked dirty socks.

See, I was looking for a pair of grey pants with a wide cuff that I thought would look stylin' with my red jacket and red clogs. I'd seen the pants amid our clothing piles at one point in the not-so-distant-past, so I thought maybe I could find them again. Wrong-O. I searched and searched--no pants. I bitched at S. about our "clothes situation" and she just looked at me with a pained look on her face. (It is all she can do, in these moments, not to try and make everything okay, not to try to "fix" it. Her silence is an indication that she is succeeding in this endeavor, and I can't get angry about it, really, because she CAN'T fix it, unless she's planning on building closets in the basement today.) I couldn't find the ding dang pants. In exasperation, I grabbed a pair of black jeans that I used to wear all the time (five years ago) and tried them on.

I had been thinking about the black jeans as I drifted off the sleep the night before. I don't know what made me think of them, but I wondered what would happen if I tried them on. I was afraid to try them on. I vaguely remembered a time, maybe two years ago, before my first WW-induced weight loss, when I wore them and, driving home that night, felt so fat and uncomfortable that I punched my bulging stomach while stopped at a light. My self hatred was so palpable that I had to take it out on something--and there was my stomach, my nasty punching bag, just waiting to take the blows.

I don't remember the next time I wore the black jeans. I do recall a time when they were loose, when my legs swam in them, and I liked that feeling. I remember once, quite clearly, when I was walking to the bathroom at work and I could feel the fabric billowing about my legs. When does denim ever billow? Ah, the good ol days.

So this morning, completely exasperated by my inability to find my grey pants, I pulled out the black jeans from the bottom of the PANTS laundry basket. Cautiously optimistic, I tried them on. I buttoned them. They were snug, but they fit. I walked around a bit. Could I wear these all day? Would I find myself driving home tonight, abusing myself because eight hours in tight jeans makes me want to cut off my gut?

Well, here I am, at the office, wearing my black jeans. So far so good. I feel kinda sexy in them, because they FIT. They're not baggy (I will admit to missing the billow) but they're not take-your-breath and dig-into-belly-skin tight either. I feel a modicum of victory, actually. Like maybe, just maybe, there's hope for this body yet.