Fat Clothes

People like me who have suffered a lifetime of obesity generally have a fairly large clothing collection. There is the highest weight clothes, that clothing size you convince yourself you will NEVER surpass, yet always seem to, down to that outfit you buy to inspire yourself to get off the dime and get moving. In my case that outfit sat for a long time with the tags still on it. Then there are the clothes in between. Through my two year journey I slowly worked my way through my closet.  Then there was the moment in time I made the decision that my closet would no longer be on a continuum. I would rid myself of all of it. Have only my size. That day I gave away nine bags of clothes. Terrifying yet cathartic at the same time. I was a 10. In my mind the perfect size for me. Yet I kept working and now seem to be an astonishing 2/4. I had never even imagined this was possible but  here I am, well out of my comfort zone forging new ground.

This brings me to the sweatshirt. The one article of clothing I saved. The one article I am wearing right this very moment. It is a light blue zip up XXL that says "Sheboygan". I had gotten it on a trip to Wisconsin at the Blue Harbor Lodge with my boys after a trampoline meet. It now has holes along the cuffs. It is tattered and huge on my size 2 frame. Yet here I sit in comfort wearing it anyway. I have spent some time wondering what it is about this that I still wear it.  It is not significant in terms of my favorite sports team (go Cubs) or representative of something significant. It says,"Sheboygan" for God's sake.

Then today....it came to me.  The hardest part about being fit at this point is considering the 45 years that came before this. The 45 years I could not walk this walk. The feeling as though I had wasted time. Reflecting on those years, I can come up with a reason things went the way they did, the bullying in junior high and high school, the miserable failure that ensued as I tried to huff and puff my way up hernia hill in 7th grade, the struggle of trying to work my way through undergrad,  grad school, infertility, foreign adoptions, kids, work.... always something.  Give me an age and I can give you a reason why I was not healthy.

As I look at the torn cuffs of my sweatshirt tonight I see all those bumps in the road. Every hard thing and life challenge that came my way. I think about without all of those struggles, all of those hard things, and I realize. Every single one of those have made me who I am today. The Sheboygan sweatshirt suddenly the perfect marriage between the fat girl I always was to the fit adult I am now. Suddenly my inability to part with it makes perfect sense. I need to feel the comfort of the only thing that fit two and a half years ago, yet see the signs of the battle scars that came long before that. The bridge between a lifetime of obesity and fitness.

So here I sit. Old and new combined, no longer regretting time wasted being unhealthy. Realizing that every rip in the cuffs holds a different story of struggle.  Struggles I now have a handle on. So... to those who may think I probably should get rid of this sweatshirt? Not today my friend. Not today. I am a firm believer in never forgetting where I came from. In this case, I apparently came from Sheboygan.