My Somewhat Co-Dependent Vaguely Dysfunctional Relationship with Pants.

I have in my dresser, two drawers. Okay, well, six drawers but that's beside the point. For the sake of this post i'm just going to mention the bottom drawers.

They're full of pants.

There is a drawer on the left which contains all current wear-able pants. The other drawer, the one with no handle so on the odd occasion I have to open it I'm required to get down on my knees, pull out the drawer above so that I can slide my hand under and kind of jimmy the drawer open, contains more pants. This drawer holds pants that I have, at some point worn.

They generally fall into two size ranges. The 11s and 12s are the ones i used to wear, after losing 65 lbs and before gaining back 25. The ones that I pull out every few weeks and in great anticipation, hike em up as far as my thighs and ass will allow. Sometimes I can button them. Sometimes I can even zip them up, but even after doing so, after sucking in my gut and doing 5-6 squats in an effort to stretch them out, I end up sighing and folding them back up, whispering "soon, my pretties. Soon."

The other ones I don't talk about much. They are the 16-18's. Don't get me wrong. They're nice pants and I don't mean them any ill will, but I hope to hell that they never get moved to the wearable drawer. They are symbolic of how far I came, and how far back I could fall. I haven't kept many of my 'fat clothes'. Just these two or three pairs of jeans.

Before I went on the first leg of my journey, I had a massive clothing purge and donated a large bundle of clothes that I believed I would never wear again. Months later, as I began to lose the weight, I wished I could have some of those things back (Ramones T-shirt, I still miss you, and think of you every day). I've almost never missed any of my bigger clothes, with the exception of my leather pants and the polka-dot dress that I tried to take in, but I'm kind of a shitty seamstress.

Over the last few months since putting some of the weight back on and moving many of my pants into the 'No-Wear' drawer, i've been wearing a lot of dresses. Pants have not been my friend, especially work wise. I've recently moved a pair of work pants from the no-wear drawer to the wear-drawer so that's opened my options a bit, but on the whole, pants are kind of bullshit.

"Don't you hate pants?"

I have one pair, in my closet. They are currently no-wears. They're my goal pants. Awesome size 11 red plaid pants. They're kind of my Holy Grail of pants.

This is an old picture, but you get the idea.

Pants. Pants, pants, pants. I just like saying it. (You know, this post could make a pretty decent drinking game. Pants.)

Oh, sorry. Kind of drifted off there.

I guess because of the way I am built - decent chest, some semblance of a waist, ALL ASS (which is why I will forever love Freddy Mercury.. you're right, we DO make the rocking world go round!) - pants are a bone of contention more than any other type of clothing. There's so many types I feel restricted from wearing:

Low-rise: Only if you're interested in being exposed to 17" of asscrack

Skinny jeans: Nope, not with the leg thing.

Pleated fronts: Well, why would anyone want to? yeeesh.

So one of the things that I look forward to is greater pants-buying freedom (okay, everyone take a shot!). There's this pre-conceived notion in the pants-designing world that if you wear a 14 or a 16, then you are some kind of Amazon - Old Navy, I'm looking at you! After losing the initial weight, I enjoyed wearing pants that didn't require extensive hemming, because as mentioned, my skills as a seamstress are below par.

I look forward to it again. I'm going to end off this post with a track from my friend BigNic, entitled, appropriately - "Pants". Now Drink!