Day 73: The Clothes Don't Fit

I don't like to shop for clothes. In the past few years it has been particularly bad as I've grown out of the classic Lane Bryant-type shopping experience. That left me with one other store in town that sells mostly nasty clothes. I would make periodic forages into the store to pick up some clothes. This is what I call shopping desperation. The only time you shop is when you are desperate. You don't care about tailoring or color or even variety. You mostly just want something that fits that doesn't make you gag when you put it on. And as long as those clothes look clean and semi-presentable, you wear them to death. 

Truly. 

Why, you may ask? Because shopping for clothes makes you face the truth about your body, your issues, and this very big problem in your life that is not just going to go away because you repeatedly wish it will. Shopping sucks. You don't feel better afterwards, you realize just how badly you look, and you don't wish to repeat the experience again any time soon. 

Shopping usually brings on a serious bout of self-loathing. 

Which is why I prolong the distance between each shopping experience to unnecessary lengths. I can always find something else to buy before I'm going to buy clothes. Until the situation gets desperate like it is now. I have about five shirts to my name, a few pair of pants and some skirts. I've worn all of them repeatedly for months and months and months. I dislike most of what I wear. My best pair of pants never fit really well--the legs are too long and the pants too baggy--but I wear them all the time because they are the nicest ones I own. I have two nice shirts that I end up wearing every week as well as on alternating Sundays. 

So, in the past two months these pants and shirts and skirts have not only been worn far too much but also they've grown bigger and bigger and bigger. My favorite black skirt was too big when I bought it and it has gotten much worse the past two months. I ended up pinning the skirt with two large safety pins after it fell off me one day in my house as I was getting ready for church. I didn't want a repeat performance of that event. My pants are so big they make me uncomfortable and my favorite shirt is so large now that it keeps slipping off my shoulder and I'm continually adjusting myself. 

When everything you wear becomes uncomfortable because it is so large, you start to hate getting dressed each day. Which forces you to go out do and do your next least-favorite task: shopping. 

Really though, at least this time around I can contemplate the fact that hopefully the shopping experience will improve incrementally. They will fit better, I will look better, and I can tamp down on the self-loathing. 

At least that is what I'm hoping.