Dear Gym Pants, It’s Not You. It’s Me. December 6, 2012

In my twenties, I swore that it would be a cold day in hell before I let any man dictate what I was going to wear.  That was then.   Now here I am, standing in front of my armoire which is literally overflowing with clothing and all I can think is, I have nothing to wear.  I let out a huge sigh, prompting my maddeningly curious three-year old to ask “Mommy, what’s wrong?”  I have nothing to wear, I tell him.  “You could wear these,” he exclaims excitedly, as he pulls a pair of black stretchy gym pants from a mountain of black stretchy gym pants.  “These are your favorite.” Ouch.  He’s right, but ouch.

I have become a cliché lately.  In my twenties, I saw mothers clad in black stretchy pants toting their children, and I judged them.  How could they just let themselves go?  Don’t they even care about their appearance?  Don’t they care about themselves?  That will never happen to me!!  I was always well-dressed.   One aspect (of many) that I hated about my last job was that I had to wear scrubs every day.  I couldn’t wait to go home and put on “real clothes.”  I felt frumpy and shapeless.  Yeah, that was then.

I go to the gym every day, ergo I wear gym pants every day.   I go to the gym at 9am.  I sweat like my insides are on fire, and it’s far from pretty.  The old me (the young naive me) would balk at going anywhere except straight home to shower, get dressed, and do my hair and makeup.  This me, however, thinks nothing of lugging my two children to the grocery store immediately after the gym.  This me has no problem with my hair dripping and pasted to my head, or with the tiny rivulets of sweat that are still trailing down my neck and chest.  This me has no problem with my flushed cheeks.

Don’t misunderstand, I do actually shower every day.  It just doesn’t tend to happen until noon or after.  After that, however, I have no excuses.  It’s at this point I could/should wear real clothes, but then “gym pants logic” starts to kick in.  I’m not going anywhere, I tell myself.  I have to feed my kids, clean, do laundry, etc, so why put on makeup, or blowdry my hair, or put on real pants?  It’s not every day, but it is the majority.  I’ve even apologized to my husband for buying a lemon.  “Sorry I hooked you with my impeccable grooming and stylish dressing, and now you are stuck with this.”  He says he doesn’t care.  He tells me I am beautiful no matter what.  But I can’t help but think that if the roles were reversed, would I want to come home to sweatpants every night after working all day?  Probably not.  It’s this line of thinking that keeps me from sliding into total gym pants oblivion.

Gym pants are a slippery slope.  One day you are in yoga pants (no, I DO NOT do yoga, just so we are clear) in the grocery store and the next day you’re starring on the “People of Wal-Mart” website in your finest Loony Tunes pajama pants stuffed sloppily into some UGG-ly boots.  This thought terrifies me.  I make a promise, to myself, and to my amazingly hard-working husband, that I will try to put on “real clothes” (hair and makeup included) at least three out of five weekdays.  That’s a lofty goal, but I am determined to put in the effort.

I hit a snag.  I was another age when I cared so much about how I looked.  I was also another weight.  As I have continued to eschew jeans for my beloved gym pants, my body has been changing under all that spandex.  I no longer have the bump on my hip that I could rest the laundry basket on.  I have collar bones and biceps.  The me of my twenties would not recognize this new me.  It’s at this very moment, standing in front of my piles of gym clothes, that I realize the paradox of my situation.  I care more about myself than the me of my twenties ever did.  That girl dressed for other people.  That girl was lonely and had no one that depended on her for their every need.  That girl was not a mother or a wife.  This me feels infinitely more comfortable and, dare I say, beautiful, in her own skin than the dressed-to-the-nines me of my twenties.

Despite her insecurities, that girl did know how to dress the body she had.  That girl didn’t have a crippling fear of gaining all the weight back, of being heavier than ever, because (though she had no idea) she was the heaviest version of herself.  And you don’t worry about losing what you never had.  Am I hanging on to jeans that are two to three sizes too big out of superstition?  Or is it because some part, no matter how minute, thinks I will indeed be that size again one day?   If I never buy smaller jeans, then I never have to be sad if they ever get too tight.  Gym pants are very forgiving of a multitude of sins.

Keeping all those clothes is beginning to feel like I am planning for failure, and that prospect is unacceptable to me now.  I take a deep breath and step off the cliff into the abyss.  I gather all the clothes that are now too large and stuff them into trash bags, which I hastily deposit at the nearest Salvation Army donation center, lest I change my mind.

So now I am in a sort of limbo.  The fat clothes are gone and I have yet to find a pair of jeans that feels truly good.  While my beloved gym pants may be sublimely comfortable and functional, I realize that they may not truly convey how good I feel in my skin.  I have worked my ass off (literally) to get to where I am.   I have achieved one of the greatest successes in my life while wearing gym pants, but that they have become a security blanket.  So begins the quest to find actual real clothes not from the workout section that make me feel really good.  But I refuse to completely forsake my gym pants.   I do, after all, feel my most beautiful when I am flushed and sweaty in my gym pants, even if that twenty-something girl in the store judging me doesn’t think so.

When you learn to let go…. October 19, 2012

I used to always think there was a secret skinny girl hiding in me. She was in there somewhere hidden under layers of fat accumulated over a lifetime of bad eating habits and a largely sedentary childhood. Surely I was not meant to be this chubby girl. I never did quite figure out how to coax her out. I thought if I prayed hard enough at night, or wished on stray eyelashes or 11:11 on clocks, she would magically appear. I would wake up one morning transformed into the graceful and nimble supermodel that I was sure I was meant to be.

But then I grew up. I grew up into a fat teenager, and later, a fat twenty-something. I’m not quite sure why it never occurred to me then that to change my body would actually require some work on my part. When this blinding realization happened, I was in my mid-twenties, living alone, and working full-time. I did not have a boyfriend. I did have two cats. My parents were sure I was a lesbian. Unless I wanted to end up a very sad cliché, something had to give. I went on a diet, and started exercising. I lost weight, and I met a man, and got married. Phew!

Fast forward a few years later. I am pregnant with my second child, whom we have spent over a year trying to conceive. I am healthy and strong. I am twenty pounds lighter than when I carried my first child. My pregnancy is smooth sailing. I even continue to run until the urge to pee every five seconds sets in. Then I go for a routine checkup and am told my blood pressure is high. I am sent to the hospital where I am told I have pre-ecclampsia. I am officially on lockdown until I deliver my baby. I am 33 weeks pregnant. That means at least five weeks in the hospital on bed rest. Away from my child and husband. Alone, and scared shitless. It means someone coming to check my blood pressure every hour. It means wearing compression stockings so I don’t get blood clots. It mean dissolving into a sobbing inconsolable ball every night after I watch my son and husband leave. It means my body seems to be betraying me.

It means I’ve spent a lifetime of fighting my body, of feeding it trash and making it be still, and criticizing it every time I look in the mirror, and then conversely, depriving it of vital nutrients, and making it run faster, push harder. It means my body may have finally had enough. I am in the shower when I start to see silver sparkles in my eyesight. It is the precursor to a stroke or a seizure. But still I pray. I pray again to please please please let me stay pregnant for one more week. One more day. One more hour. I have been warned of all the complications a preemie can have.

But in the middle of week 35, my body has had enough. My water breaks. And as if my body wants to give me one last insult, it rejects my epidural. The medication that I’d thought was so magical with my first child, now only manages to numb my arms and legs. I have back labor. Has anyone died from just the pain? Surely I will be the first. And in that moment when my baby is born, I do not feel relieved. I feel strong.

Fast forward a few months. My “preemie” is now a robust baby. He is round and feisty. My pediatrician does not miss an opportunity to tell me how large he is. He thrives. He is the willing audience my three-year old has been waiting for. And I decide to stop fighting my body so much. I decide to let go of the skinny girl hiding inside. She wasn’t there in the delivery room. She was never there. I decide this body I see in the mirror is worth every amazing thing I can do for it. I decide to feed it whole foods, beautiful colorful things from the earth. I give up all packaged and processed foods. I run again. And I discover the magic of weight training. And very quickly, my body shows its gratitude. I see the lowest number on the scale I have seen since I-don’t-even-remember-when. But, more than that, I feel the best physically and mentally I have since I-don’t-even-remember-when. I hear my children laugh and I am truly grateful for the gifts my body has given me.

I am in the gym most days. I run hard. I lift heavy. I enjoy sweating. I am overjoyed by the sound of my heart racing in my ears. I see those skinny girls walking on the treadmills. I can run faster and lift heavier than all of them. I have let go of ever wanting to be one of them.