JEAN SHOPPING

TW Weight

My pants don't fit.

Every day, when choosing my outfit, I pick between the same three pairs of pants. The beige high-waisted slacks, the green denim jeans or the black silk trousers. I don't pick my favourite jeans, the orange low-waisted pair, or the white linen ones, they don't fit anymore.

In 2022, I was unhealthy. A depressed girl, unable to take care of herself and eat properly. At the time I didn't realise how weak and small looked, but I was severely underweight.

Back then I took in a pair of navy striped suit pants at the waist, as they fell down, sitting loosely around my hips. Before work on Friday, I had to undo the stitches because they were too tight and I had to struggle to zip them up. Now, they fit perfectly.

The result of being in a better mental state is that I have put on weight. People tell me I look healthier, and I can see it. But it's still hard to think of it as a good thing. The ingrained cultural phenomenon of weight loss and thinness leaves behind a feeling of dread when gaining weight. It feels wrong, backwards.

The visible changes in my body, the additional stretch marks, the way my thighs look, if it were anyone else it would be beautiful. Why's it so hard to convince myself that it's the same for me too?

I'm not ignorant to the fact that how I look exists within the realm of societal beauty standards. But I know that so many of us experience this feeling, and I think we deserve the space to acknowledge that the expectations of thinness exist and impact how we see and value the person looking back at us in the mirror.

It's okay, celebrated, seen as beautiful, supported and treated with kindness as long as it's not ourselves.

I'm trying to remind myself that going up a jean size is okay.

So many of my pants don't fit. But I can just buy new pairs. It's a good thing. I can convince myself, remind myself it's a good thing.