I’m Finally Buying New Clothes

Because I’m sick of waiting for my body to be good enough

My FUPA hangs inelegantly over the waistband of my too-tight yoga pants. My stomach protrudes from underneath my too-short t-shirts. My thighs strain against the seams of my go-to, pre-pregnancy stretchy pants.

I’ve long retired my itty-bitty, pre-pregnancy thongs. For almost three years, I’ve been wearing my pregnancy underwear — the underwear I wore when I was 40 pounds heavier, the underwear that’s still stained from all the strange pregnancy secretions.

My sagging breasts feel as though they are betraying me for gravity, and I still live in my stretched-out nursing tank tops.

You see, I haven’t bought clothes for myself since I gave birth to my daughter over two years ago. I don’t own any clothes in my size.

I’ve been clinging to the hope that if I could just lose the baby weight, I could go back to my pre-pregnancy wardrobe and not waste any money on transitional clothes. Today, I’m still several sizes larger than before, and for the past two years, I’ve resorted to sausaging myself into my pre-pregnancy clothes.

I’d always been a size small. And while I’m ashamed to admit it, I took pride in it. Recently, I’ve associated “size small” with my youth and beauty in the times before pregnancy. I believed if I accepted that I’m no longer a small, I’d also be admitting that I’m no longer what society deems attractive and facing my inevitable slog into matronhood. Perhaps by stuffing myself into pre-pregnancy clothes, I’ve been holding on to my waning appeal.

Although I’ve preached about post-pregnancy body acceptance, I’ve found it’s a journey easier to travail in theory than practice. Secretly, I’ve been waiting until the scale reaches that golden number — my pre-pregnancy weight — as a sign I’m worthy enough for clothes that fit me and sexy enough to accept affection from my husband.

Intellectually, I know all of this is silly. I know I shouldn’t be wasting mental real estate worrying about my changing body. It’s all stupid and arbitrary — these societal expectations. I hate that I’m not emotionally mature enough to not worry about my body. When even female dogs are getting boob jobs to make them more appealing to prospective owners, it’s challenging to stay strong against the onslaught of toxic, unrealistic beauty standards. Maybe one day I’ll get there.

This week, I busted through my last pair of pants and reached a breaking point.

I realized I’m sick of my pants digging into my flesh and carving red marks into my skin. They shouldn’t cut off my circulation like a 21st-century leg corset. I’m tired of yanking the bottom of my t-shirts over my belly that won’t be contained. I’m done with pulling up my parachute underwear from falling off my rear.

What if I never reach my pre-pregnancy weight? How long am I going to wait to buy myself clothes that fit? Have I been punishing my body for not being what it should be — for not snapping back to its pre-pregnancy form as if it were made of rubber? Is it motherhood? Is self-sacrifice so built into the expectations for mothers that going without became second nature to me?

No matter. I’m fed up with walking around like an apology and feeling like my post-pregnancy body is a betrayal.

I don’t want to punish my body any longer. I’ve only got one, and it’s been good to me so far. I’m active and healthy. I regularly strap my 23-pound toddler to my back and take her and our dog on long hikes in the hills.

Life is too damn short and precious to waste energy on resenting my body. Middle age has come more quickly than Jason Biggs’s character in American Pie (elder millennials, you’re welcome). My daughter is growing up before my eyes, and I don’t want her to inherit a twisted relationship with her own body.

I’ve been watching Worn Stories, a docuseries on Netflix about real people’s relationships to significant items of clothing. It’s encouraged me to reflect on what my sartorial choices say about me. Worn Stories posits that clothing is a key part of our identities and how we present ourselves to the world. “[Our clothing] can serve as an aspiration, a reinvention, a confirmation, or a rejection,” says the IndieWire review of the series.

My clothing has kept me in a state of arrested development. My nursing tank tops and ill-fitting clothes say, “I’m a brand new mom!” I’ve seen my “new mom” identity as a liminal space between child-free me and full-blown motherhood. My “new mom” identity gives me a public excuse for dressing poorly while also keeping me closer to my exalted, pre-mom identity.

But, my daughter is almost two and a half. I’m not a brand new mom anymore. I am a mother. And in accepting that identity, I have to reconcile competing conceptions of beauty, attractiveness, worthiness, and desirability. I have to find a way to be a mother, to feel confident signifying I’m a mother and feel loved and lovable.

This weekend, I removed all my size small clothes from my closet and put them in storage. They’ll be there when (or if) I need them. I don’t want to continue staring at a closet full of clothes that don’t fit me.

I bought some comfortable, cotton, clearance pants, shirts, and underwear in my actual size and in bright colors that compliment my skin tone. They arrived this morning, and I tried them on in front of the mirror. I luxuriated in the feeling of the soft, loose fabrics on my skin. I noticed how the clothes flowed over my curves rather than suffocating them. My posture seems different when I wear them — my back straighter, my head held higher. I examined the reflection in the mirror and saw a mom — tired, but content, present and not shrinking.

They say that clothes make the [wo]man, but I wonder if it’s also the other way around. My regular v-neck t-shirt becomes imbued with beauty and purpose when it frames my shoulders, made strong and defined by constantly lifting my daughter up and down, and when it accentuates my nourishing breasts. My everyday Hanes underwear hugs my stomach as if in respect for the loose pouch of skin that once held my daughter. My basic-bitch yoga pants faithfully outline my rounded hips perfectly suited to carrying my daughter, embracing my husband, and carrying me over challenging terrain. My well-fitted clothes make me feel more like myself, and somehow more like a mom.

I know I’ll still have days where I long for my younger, more pristine body. But today, I feel better knowing that my clothes are caring for me and that I’m caring for myself.