Saying Goodbye...to Pants

No, this is not about me giving up on a daily wardrobe staple and going pants-less for the rest of my life.

However, that is not a half-bad idea.

Mental bookmark.

But back to pants and my farewell.

What I am saying goodbye to is a particular pair of jeans that I bought back in late 2007. These are my Skinny Jeans. If you are a woman, you know exactly what I'm talking about, and if you're a woman who doesn't know what I'm talking about, then you and I can't be friends because I'll throw my tampon-laden purse in your face if you order another salad in front of me because I'll be TOO BUSY EATING BREAD STICKS to say anything else.

Ladies, really? You have to know what Skinny Jeans are, and I'm not referring to those matchstick jegging situations or those pants that the hipster boys wear in crazy ass colors.

But let's get rid of those jeans too because men should not wear pants that might potentially castrate them.

Anyway, my Skinny Jeans represented hope for me - hope that my body could get back into them. I think every woman owns a pair of pants just like this. They are the pre-pregnancy jeans or the pre-mid-life crisis pants or the pre-love-chub jeans or whathaveyou jeans. They are the pants you want to fit into forever because you think they're going to do shit for you, like get you laid or erase your stretch marks, but NEWS FLASH, no pair of pants is going to do that for anyone.

There's even an episode of Sex and the City where Miranda is able to fit into her own Skinny Jeans after she lost all of the baby weight, and I know every woman who has watched that thought about her own pair of skinny jeans hiding in her closet. I saw that episode, and I was like, "Girl, those are nice jeans, but you don't need them."

No one needs these Skinny Jeans malingering in their closets.

When I tried on my Skinny Jeans in the dressing room, I was in the best shape of my life in terms of lung capacity and shit, but I absolutely hated my body. Every inch was too big. Where I curved, I wanted to be flat. Where I was already flat, I wanted to be invisible.

These jeans had potential to be great on me, or so I thought. They covered what I wanted covered and the little size tag validated all of my hard work, or so I thought.

They were already tight, and when I say tight, I mean like, they were plastic wrapped around my legs, but I bought them anyway because I wanted to lose more weight to fit into them.

Let me repeat the ludicrousness of that one more time: I BOUGHT PANTS THAT DIDN'T FIT SO I COULD LOSE WEIGHT AND FIT INTO THEM LATER.

Who. Does. That?

Women across this country that's who.

When I did fit into these jeans, it was like victory, but not really. I gave up bread and pasta and chocolate to fit into those pants, and I ran myself into the ground to make sure that zipper could zip up. I just couldn't let them not fit because not only were they $200 (WHY, SHASTA, WHY?!) but they also represented my youth/my peak/the best years of my life/etc, or so I thought.

What I've come to realize is that every year is the best year of my life, and I am never going to tap out at the top of the mountain, and I am too damn busy to worry about what the hell kind of pants I'm wearing. Life is a crazy ass uphill battle that is both fantastic and terrifying, and regardless of where you are in that battle, the way your ass looks in an overpriced pair of jeans IS NOT IMPORTANT.

I know that magazines and celebrities and witch doctors and those bitchy girls from high school promote these conflicting ideas about loving yourself and your natural figure while simultaneously wearing only pants in the 0-2 range, and it's confusing and hurtful and entirely unnecessary.

Ladies, that is some bad juju, and our womanly butts do not need that sort of energy.

Don't be friends with people who tell you should look a certain look and weigh a certain weight. Don't look at pictures of objectified models and want to look like them. Don't treat other women like objects just because they have some junk in the trunk. Don't buy a stupid article of clothing you can't fit into with a psycho ambition to become small enough in order to fit into it later because that is kray-kray.

Eat that extra cookie. Spend your money on clothes that fit. Exercise. Don't exercise. It's all good so long as you don't have a pair of pants holding you back.

I'm all about being healthy and living a balanced life and whatever, but sometimes, I want to eat a whole package of Double Stuf Oreos while watching episode after episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians because I have to see the hot mess that is Kim's 72-day marriage.

And then after that, I usually open a bag of chips because you know what? I got a man, he put a ring on it, and since he prefers my pants off anyway, who cares what the calorie count is on these damn chips?

And even if you don't got a man or a woman or whomever you like to sleep over, and your ring is rusty or broken or nonexistent, you should eat some chips too because no pair of jeans is worth your favorite snack.

I know there is a lot of capitalization and girl power going on here, but what I'm trying to communicate is sort of a big deal. It's one small step for womankind, but it's a giant leap of epic proportions for me and my butt.