my ass is too big

or maybe my jeans are just too tight

Today I put on my jeans. My good jeans. The perfect jeans. The old faithful’s. The ones that are the perfect mid blue wash, that fit my amble hips and my waist without being tailored (not that I’m opposed to such things), they aren’t too long, and the wide leg is simultaneously timeless and trendy. They are my go-to jeans. Whenever I wear them I feel great. Every outfit with them becomes special. Suddenly the oversized tee and loafers just work. They are, like any good pair of jeans, simply magic.

And today they have betrayed me.

Having suffering through an Australian summer and an unseasonably warm autumn, I have not worn jeans. I haven't worn pants of any kind actually. It’s been far too hot for that nonsense.

At the beginning of December every year I actually pack away all my jeans, and jumpers and coats for I cannot even bare to look at them, just a glimpse of them hanging in my wardrobe will make me sweat, breaking me out in red welts. I’m actually getting a little flushed now.

But, today, is the first day in a long unrelenting summer where I felt that I could risk it. I was going to write at my café and then to work, so I wanted something easy. A relaxed cool girl vibe – like I didn't even think about, I just put the clothes on and looked effortlessly chic. And I have the perfect outfit for such occasions – my oversized graphic tee from when my favourite podcast came on tour down under last year, my platform Steve Madden black faux crocodile loafers, my orange and green fishy necklace and the jeans.

This effortless look, took me months to perfect and I get a lot of miles out of it. So, with the weather cooling down ever so slightly I pulled my jeans out of their box and pulled them on only to find that they have betrayed me, abandoned me.

My jeans are too tight.

Now they’re not a lost cause, I got them over my ever-expanding hips and managed to zip them up with some difficulty. But they definitely don’t fit like they used too. Now I do not believe that a prerequisite of jeans is comfort. Denim is not a comfortable fabric. Comfort is the tradeoff you make for structure. And I’m okay with that.

I abhor stretch denim – I would never deny it to anyone else but I’d rather eat sand than wear it myself. I want my jeans to hold me, to hug me. But now, these jeans have trapped me in a too tight embrace. Standing is fine – if I don’t breathe too deeply – but sitting is a nightmare. They ride up, if you get my drift and I find myself wiggling around in my seat like a dog with worms dragging its butt across the carpet. It’s not a good look.

Now it is a fact of life that bodies will fluctuate, as a woman there is gonna be a certain amount of ebb and flow throughout the month, and as I age spreading hips and soft tummies are to be expected. But I am a child of the ‘nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’ generation.

When I was growing up, body shaming was practically a sport and one the media had elevated to an elite standard. So, my initial reaction to this most terrible event was to begin berating myself. I think about the chocolate I have over indulged in because – well because chocolate is delicious. And the Pilates and yoga classes I’ve missed because I have been exhausted.

I shouldn’t have let my workout routine fall apart in the face of intense personal and work stress. I mean, I’ve only had a partner off work dealing with an injury for the last 4 months - meaning the bulk of the house keeping, cooking, and financial burdens of adult life fell solely to me. Not to mention that I’ve been working a cool 60 hours a week. And my job, for all its good qualities is also very stressful. I even had to take some time out from it all to preemptively stave off burnout, cause I can’t afford to actually burn out. Not to mention trying to maintain my writing practice, writing my first novel, and stuff to submit to competitions, and I really wanted to come back to Substack, and return to my fortnightly writers group.

But that's no excuse right? I should’ve still been able to work out at least 5 hours a week. At one point I was managing 7, doing both an hour of yoga and an hour of Pilates in the same day. And I’ve been too over indulgent. Some days allowing my eating to resemble that of a 10-year-old left to fend for themselves.

And being a child of disordered eating I know how to combat this. I have done almost every insane crash diet there is. I’ve fasted, and drank the chalky meal replacement shakes, and counted calories, and taken stimulants, and just plain not eaten at all. I know how to lose a few pesky-jean-tightening-kilos in a few short weeks.

Although I have found that such things are less effective now. At 31 my body is less pliable, less responsive to such insane demands. My body hoards its fat, revels in its softness, even when I do not. Now when I don’t eat my body stores it’s precious fat, presumably so we can survive the harsh winter. I like to imagine I have the body of a sturdy pilgrim.

So, I start doing to calorie counting mental math (the only math I have ever excelled at) and soaking myself in shame.

Because my jeans cannot be too tight.

I cannot be getting bigger. There is only one acceptable change and that is smaller – always smaller. I have spent almost two decades of my life wishing that I were smaller, thinner, that I took up less space.

As a child I was chubby – the product of being bad at sport and eating too much processed crap. And I remember, even before puberty had properly gotten a foothold, wishing to be thin. To be like the other thin girls in my class, to be like the girls and women I saw on TV and in magazines.

I knew that being beautiful and desirable was the job of being a woman. And you cannot be those things and be fat. Or at least that's what I believed. It’s what we’re told; it is the lie we are sold. I have spent hours of my life obsessing about my body. Hyper focused on all its flaws. Wishing away the dimples in my bum, the soft pouch of my belly, the jiggle of my undefined upper arm.

And there hasn't been a day when I haven’t thought about my body. How big or small I look. What clothes work best? How much is too much to eat. If I skip lunch can I have that extra bit of cheese? What’s the most aerobically effective exercise? Can I skip Pilates if I don’t have lunch? Has anyone noticed I’m fat? Am I beautiful? Am I desirable? Am I doing the job of being a woman right?

You are never off the clock.

The insane thing is that I consider myself a card-carrying feminist. I believe that all of that is just patriarchal bullshit. Pretty is not a price you pay to occupy the space marked woman. I know women to be complex, funny, heart breaking, passionate, horrible, talented, visionary creatures. We have so much more to offer the world than the way we look. I have so much more to offer the world.

And yet, I still feel bad about my belly. I still flinch when my loving supportive perfect boyfriend jiggles it lovingly. I mean, it’s insane. This man desires me – as I am, fat and all – so why can’t I let him touch to soft rolls of my stomach. I mean he regularly sees my butthole and he still fancies the pants off me.

And I have to acknowledge here that I am not even fat. Objectively (as objective as anyone can be about this stuff), I am mid-size. I am a comfortable size 10/12 (6/8 for those in the US). Average if you will. I am decidedly human shaped and relatively fit and healthy, which should be the only metric by which we measure bodies.

If any other woman of any size said any of this crap to me I’d be furious. I’d be quoting feminists and body positivity slogans and reminding them that your body is meant to be the thing that lets you enjoy all the stuff of being human. You are not a thing to be perfected; you are not a project. You are a whole ass person with great tits and lovely jubbly bum and a hot throbbing brain.

My body does all the body stuff. I can walk fast and keep a conversation going. I can do that little awkward half run, holding my tits, when I’m late. I can sit and stand and stretch and bend. I can do the splits for fucks sake. My body bounces back easily from illness and injury. I can sit like a goblin hunched around my laptop for hours and then un-pretzel myself with ease. My body lets me work and love and live a full happy life. My body is very good, actually.

So, today, I decided to do something radical.

Today I took off my too tight jeans and put on something else instead.

Clothes are meant to fit you, not the other way around. And if by the time I actually need my jeans they are still too tight, I will simply buy a bigger pair.

It is easy to love ourselves conditionally. I have been doing this for years. I have loved and accepted my body on the condition that was just the before photo part of some eventual transformation, which would see my body become taught and tight and ‘perfect’. But maybe it won’t. Maybe this is as good as it gets.

And I have to say – it’s pretty fucking good.

I’m a hot babe. With different sized boobs, and thighs that touch, and a dimpled bum, and wide hips, and a soft belly. I am sexy and cute and beautiful.

And, ultimately, that is the least interesting thing about me.