Friday, November 6, 2009

i might be the biggest loser

Most of the clothes that currently exist in my wardrobe were procured during the gestation of Foo. Five years later, all of those clothes have served as my daily staples in schlubbery.

However, the perils of divorce, near poverty, custody wars, and self-esteem flagellation have caused me to do the one thing that my mother-in-law snarkily swore she'd never see: Me in the same jeans I wore in high school. Pre-pregnancy jeans, eat your asses out. I'm busting into the archives.

I didn't even notice nothing fits anymore until a rash of comments came flying my way all in one day. "Woah. Where'd you go?" "Are you ill? You've lost weight." "Baby, you look beautiful but don't you go wasting away on me." and my favorite, "Have you been working out?" BMF would cheshirely say yes, but the truth is decidedly no. I hate exercise for the sake of exercise.

Because funds are so frighteningly scarce, I use most of my allowance on food for the children while they are with me, and treat myself to one meal a day most days -- and that even includes fast food which was hardly on my radar at all before "all of this." Groceries go to waste, so I don't buy them for myself. My fridge is full of things this adult doesn't eat and the few ingredients I always keep on hand for baking emergencies.

I haven't looked in a neck-down mirror in a long time. To be truthful, I have never consciously owned one. People used to hate that when they came to visit. Where is your full length mirror? Huh? I never really cared much for how I looked, or how my body looked, or how other people looked at me. I am so ok within my skin that being chubby was and is nothing more than a visual personal nuisance, and I have a perfectly grandiose personality to camouflage that insecurity.

I'm headed out for a breakfast meeting (6am!), wearing my loose-fitting high school jeans, a face that apparently glows, a continued lack of fashion sensibility, and a see-you-next-tuesday smirk for my mother-in-law.

I guess I'm not that into vanities, just bonfires.

xodana