Just Buy the Damn Clothes

Last week I got my first stitch fix in a loooong time. I love Stitch Fix but have a hard time paying the prices of most pieces so it’s pretty rare I order a box.  Last month they informed me they were waiving my styling fee (which happens if you wait long enough between boxes apparently) and I also happened to have a $25 credit sitting out there. It was as good a time as ever. I’d been putting off shopping because, to be completely honest, my weight is higher than I want it to be. A combination of a long and stringent training season, the stress of moving with small children and a job change…my clothes are understandably tight right now. I’ve been squeezing into them, uncomfortable and angry with myself. Going out has become one of those sad, dramatic affairs where I sit on the closet floor staring wistfully at all my beautiful, not fitting clothes and cry. The fact is I’m at a size I skipped in the weight loss process. I cruised so quickly downwards past this current weight that I didn’t have time to replace my wardrobe to this strange, in between size. I had clothes from 15 lbs heavier and clothes from 15 lbs lighter but where I am today has left me in a clothing desert. So, hopeful that trying on clothes in my own home would be slightly less humiliating,  I reluctantly moved the size indicator on my ‘style profile’ up a size and placed my order.

The box came and I loved every. single. thing. All of it. I felt cute. I felt comfortable. It was my style and went with the other few stretchy pieces of clothes that still fit. So why did I want to send each and every piece back? One simple word.

Worthiness.

Such a small word for such a big struggle.

No matter how much I loved those clothes I told myself I wasn’t worthy of buying myself those clothes. I had put on weight and didn’t deserve to “reward” myself for that. New clothes meant I was throwing in the towel. Instead of buying new clothes I should be hitting the gym, balls to the wall, and eating clean again. I should be running more, eating less, measuring and weighing until all evidence of my summer/fall of excess was erased. When I was back down to where I was at the beginning of the summer,I could buy my reward clothes. Then, and only then, would I be worthy.

Over and over and over the circle of thoughts run through my head. I put the clothes in the return bag. I take them out. I try them on. I cycle through my “I’m not worthy” diatribe AGAIN.

And then I remember a story a friend shared with me. One year she spent an entire winter wearing her coat open because she couldn’t zip it. She was at a weight she didn’t like and rather than buying a new coat and being warm, she shivered her way through a harsh Minnesota winter. She punished herself by freezing for an entire winter all because she didn’t find herself worthy of a new coat at her current size. She allowed her weight to define her worthiness. What woke her up, she said, was that she would never, not once, punish her own child for outgrowing a coat by making them wear it open…by allowing them to freeze. No matter if it was a growth spurt out or up, not providing a child with a coat that fit was, essentially, child abuse. Wasn’t she worth as much as her child? Wasn’t she worth more than abuse?

Yes. And if she is, aren’t I. And if I am, aren’t you? Aren’t we all worthy, right here, right now, exactly as we are?

Exactly where I am right now is this: I’m not ready to go balls to the wall at the gym. I’m just not. I’m tired. I simply want to do my healthy 4 days a week of exercise for 30-60 minutes. I want to let my injuries both actual and threatening, heal. I want to eat sort of clean and enjoy baking with my kids and eating the fruits of our labor. Am I annoyed my ass is hanging out of the back of my too tight jeans right now? Yep. Would getting dressed in the morning be easier if I lost some weight? Definitely. Do I miss my visible abs? Sure do. But I’ll get back there eventually. Slowly. Maybe. Or maybe not. I can make my decision later.

And until then, I deserve to be comfortable so I ripped the tags off each piece of clothing. I bought the damn clothes.

ps for anyone wondering how Thanksgiving went, the low bar of no one getting a food born illness was achieved. So victory is mine. Bam.