Trigger warning: diet culture and disordered eating.
In hindsight, Im sure she couldnt wait to give them away, regardless of size.
At the time, I was slim, but not slim-hipped.
In these jeans, I found a much-needed sartorial friend.
These were jeans of another era, made for a body better suited for another era.
As the years passed, the trends, as they are wont to do, began to change.
Stocksy/Design by Cristina Cianci
By the time I graduated college, my shorts had gone from eclectic style choice to de rigueur.
First came the bedbugs, which had apparently moved into my apartment before I had.
Several garments and accessories were thrown into large green trash bags never to be worn again.
Eden Stuart/Design by Cristina Cianci
The shorts survived massacre, albeit a tad faded thanks to numerous stints in the dryer.
(Im sure theres a metaphor for my mental state at the time in there somewhere.)
A year later, I started feeling pain on the right side of my abdomen.
Soon the pain was joined by tingling sensations in my extremities and feelings of tightness in my chest.
New York wasnt killing me, but apparently, it was making me extremely anxious.
But as soon as I recovered, my body began to change.
Even though my body was coming closer to the one in fashion, embracing my new figure was challenging.
I had gone through my life occupying what Anne Helen Petersen coined the gray area of disordered eating.
But perhaps more than anything, thinness gave me a sense of control.
But I could control the number on the scale, and the size of my jean shorts.
Then the pandemic hit.
Soon, the excuse I had used for skipping out on physical activity (I live in New York!
I walk everywhere!)
After a decade of service, they now live in the top of my closet.
In 2020, I hit a number of significant milestones.
Three years after moving to the city, I accepted a job (this one!)
On the few (socially distanced!)
A relationship, like a pair of shorts, isnt worth trying to force yourself into.
Im still at the beginning of this journey.
I am making moves, but my health transformation is definitely a work in progress.
I told my therapist that I was okay with that; Ive outgrown them.
