This week, the Public Relations student Org that I lead had
a field trip to visit a local PR firm. Naturally, we wanted to make a
good impression, so we decided to dress business casual for the visit. Sick of
wearing khaki pants to everything, I
decided to bust out my old dress pants from high school, since I’ve always
remained a pretty consistent size. After promptly being
issued a steep fine from the fashion police for wearing flared-fit pants after
2005, I noticed something.
The pants that had always been a bit too big on me were now really,
really squashing my hips. As in, I sat down to think about how I could still
probably wear them and get away with it, and my hips were like “DEAR GOD NO I
WON’T LET YOU DO THIS TO ME” and I had to take them off.
My hips have always been bigger than the rest of me, and I
have outgrown clothes before, but this was different. Normally, when I had to
size up, it was because I was growing, and so I generally grew pretty
evenly. But for the first time in my life, only one area is getting bigger, and it’s
getting bigger because it’s gaining weight. I don’t fit into things nicely anymore; I
either have to buy the right size dress and have it be way too tight in my
hips, or buy a size up so that it fits my hips but is slightly baggy everywhere
else. (when I told my friend about this, she gave me a proud smile and said “Kayla,
you’ve finally become a woman. Welcome. I’m proud of you”)
I’ll have to admit, I was troubled by my gut reaction to my
ill-fitting pants. The first thing that popped into my head was “I really need
to stop eating all those processed foods” and “bikini season’s coming up; I
really should start doing squats.” At which point I screamed “SHUT UP PATRIARCHY”
and ran out to buy myself a large cinnamon bun and a bag of cheesy popcorn. (The
food part’s true. I also bought two boxes of cereal, a loaf of bread, and a
shower curtain for completely unrelated reasons.)
Concern was a weird reaction for me to have, especially since I
know that I’m still very thin, and I’ve wanted to gain weight for a
while. I’m certainly not ashamed of or concerned about my hips; I was even kind of proud
when I went out to buy new dress pants and the “curvy fit” were the ones that
were most flattering and fit best. It’s just a part of growing up. As my
friend told me, “when you hit the age of 20/21 your body starts going through
another set of changes” (I snorted when she said this; it made me think
of awkward middle school talks but it also made me think of
changing into a werewolf. Which I kind of hope happens too, because that would
be pretty flippin’ awesome)
With these hips, I’ll most likely be turning into Shakira.
But close enough, right?
In the end, my friend had me get up and show off my new
hips, and we laughed about how I was finally getting curves
and turning into a woman.
And you know what? I think I might just keep them.
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