ROUND THESE PARTS

Screen Shot 2013-01-11 at 2.20.35 AMdripping tea cupsdresser BK memory book

just a small note: i'm currently having a serious issue with spam comments (you know the kind: link list after link list all posted by anonymous) so for the time being i'm eliminating the ability to comment anonymously in the hopes of stemming the influx of such. i apologize if this proves an inconvenience--i just really, really, really don't won't to go back to word verification. {i HATE WORD VERIFICATION comments}. xo

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I think we all speak a different kind of language than each other, but you sound a whole lot like coffee on a Sunday morning and the rain is falling bitter against the windowpane and your elbows are making holes in the countertops, and I only want to tell you that I wish I was as close as the threads of your t-shirt, and if I can't be that, then I'll be content with drinking my drink beside you, with the rain sloppy open mouth kissing the roof, trying to dismantle the etymology of a conversation that falls out of the realm of words. | Shinji Moon / He Loves the Rain

i own jeans now. (in more than one color, even).

i've been thinking about how i wrote this post nearly three years ago. four years without owning a pair of jeans. which was really five. or six.

and then after that, came this.

jeans and pants: the eating disorder's worst fear and largest enemy.

so here's what i want to say:

i have one pair of boot-cut-jeans that i've owned since my second year of college (they've now reached vintage-esque status). i occasionally pull them out because they fit now and they really do look damn fine with cowboy boots.

i have a plum pair of skinny-jeans (cotton pants) from ny&co that always makes me feel more petite than i actually am (i like to wear them on dates). i have the same jeans (pants) in bright blue and while they aren't as forgiving, i've never wore anything more then i wore them last spring.

when i visited home last August i got two pairs of classic jeans. one was a twelve dollar pair from the banana repulic outlet store and they may very well be my favorite pair of pants (jeans) ever.

i own black corduroy pants. and gray ones too. i love them. (black corduroy pants can be worn with anything and dressed up or down--i can recommend nothing more).

i even have like three black stretchy exercise pants that cling to the curve of my but. and somedays i love them. and somedays i don't. but i have them. and i wear them. (in public, even).

i don't say all this to brag. to parade out a laundry list of pants so you can see just how many i have. (in my defense, i 1. never throw anything away and 2. am making up for a lot of lost time {four or five or six years}).

it's to say this: it gets better. life continues on and it gets better--and sometimes you have to fight for it to get better and sometimes you just have to wait for it to, and it's not always easy to know the difference, but there is one.

i went about six years without wearing pants. so deeply did i loathe my thighs and wide hips and large bottom.

and now i hardly wear anything else.

and the move from no-pants to pants was brought to you by relatively normal eating. no diet. no restriction. no ban on hamburgers or doughnuts or twizzlers. it was the product of exercise and vegetables and experimentation and a hell of a lot of patience.

honestly, it was the product of saying, my worth is not tied to how i look it jeans. i am worthy. period. and so i'll wear pants if i damn well want to.

i will choose to feed my body because i love it. i will not starve it into submission or starve it in pursuit of an industry's narrow-minded beauty ideal.

so at the start of the new year when we're all inundated by diet ads and weight-loss programs, i thought i'd offer up this little testimonial instead. just something to chew on.

(oh! and i did it by drinking as many lattes as i wanted. because i love them. and find them deeply comforting. and they bring a certain sort of happiness that i never want to deny myself). so there.