You ever try on a new (or new-to-you) pair of pants and just sigh in contentment that it fits your butt? Or your hips? Or, God forbid, both?
Yeah, me neither.
Something is always “off” when I’m buying clothes. It might be the leg length or the waist. It might be some sag or lack of sag. And it’s hard to not take it personally.
Recently I was getting together clothes to purge that no longer fit. Dresses and pants and skirts in patterns and colors I loved scattered my closet floor. Florals and dark denims. I remember staring at the most adorable pair of dark bib overalls and lamenting that they didn’t fit my hips.
If only.
Later I recalled the story to my mom and said something ridiculous about how I must be shaped funny because the box of clothes I was selling that sat in front of us was filled with clothes that I loved, didn’t want to part with, but they just didn’t fit right.
She looked at me with exasperation. It’s not you that’s shaped funny, she said. It’s the clothes.
And at that moment I laughed at myself. Honestly. Truly. I laughed. I laughed and I’m still laughing because of how deeply ingrained I’d let the societal concept of “one size fits all” steep into my consciousness like a forgotten teabag.
We are not “one size fits all” as a human race—physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. We are brilliantly different and unique. We say this. We think this. But it’s hard to remember this inside our closets.
My mom did some whip-smart mom-ing that day and I’m grateful because apparently I still need it. And I probably always will. And I hope that someone else ends up with that pair of pants that I so loved and couldn’t wear, and that their mom tells them how perfectly they fit their one-of-a-kind body.
May they sigh in contentment that they didn’t fit the previous owner.
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