a giant among zeroes

Here I sit, sipping my second glass of wine, giddy not just with alcohol, but with accomplishment. Today, I did what few can do without running the risk of nervous breakdown or spontaneous combustion. I bought pants.

This may seem like an ordinary task to you. In theory, it's not really a big deal. Go to a store that sells pants, and buy a pair. But in practice, it has caused me five weekends of stress and borderline body dysmorphic disorder. Take one sane, relatively-happy-with-her-body, non-dieting cake lover, put her in a changeroom with seven pairs of jeans, and watch her unravel. I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out how it all happened...

It started with the first weekend. My favouritest pair of jeans, that had served me and my bottom very well for almost four years crapped out. I was devastated. I mean, it takes months of amateur gymnastics(bends, stretches, lunges) to soften the rigidity of spanking new denim into comfy submission. But I took it on the chin, and went to my old haunt, Kensington Market, to see if I could scavenge myself a pair of orange tab 517's. It was a beautiful, unusually sunny day, and the Market cast its usual spell of sensory overload upon me. Even the stench of the fish monger stalls that we all try to pretend doesn't bother us didn't bother me. I was feeling good, I was feeling positive. I wandered in and out of various stores, tried on ill fitting jeans in cramped and musty curtained corners. I wasn't phased by my lack of success. Any seasoned Market go-er will tell you it takes patience and perseverance.

And I did persevere, over and over and over again. Impatience mounted. And mounted. And mounted. I even braved Eaton's Center(on a weekend!) It was there, on a Saturday afternoon, in the flourescent hell of a Gap changeroom, that I discovered that not only had all the pants in the mall been shrunk prior to my getting there, but that all the mirrors in the mall had been warped prior to my getting there. Something happens when you get infront of a changeroom mirror. Things become apparent that you wish would stay hidden...Like the Tom Selleck worthy mustache you'd always affectionately called "peach fuzz". Or those extra winter-pounds you've been shrugging off as "water retention". Vanity sizing did little to soothe me, if anything it irritated me with its assumption of my vain ignorance. (Hey, clothing companies, vanity sizing only works if no one actually knows about it!)

Me, a tiny room, bad lighting and a pair of jeans. Somehow, this was all it took to undo years of self-worth affirmations and self-esteem building.

As a young girl, I was very thin. And the thing I learned early on was that my thinness was a source of envy. Having always been thin, I'd never given it much thought. But after passing virtually every day with at least one(envious) comment on my size, I came to equate it with my worth as a person. Being a complete nerd, it was pretty much the only positive feedback I received from my peers. It did a lot of damage. Not only did I become obsessed with staying skinny, but when puberty and its inevitable weight gain hit me, I was traumatized and filled with self- loathing. I became terrified of food. It lasted years. Years of determining the relationship of calories and metabolism. Of over- and under-feeding myself. Of chasing the elusive carrot of the model body.

I can say now with some pride that I eventually tired of that struggle. I eat what I want. I don't talk about fat content, I don't shun carbs. But I can't say with all honesty, or without a little saddness, that I am entirely above being seduced by the idea of being the physical ideal. I am not completely removed from the fact that if I stopped eating cake or chocolate, I would be thinner, and closer to the shape of the fashion industry that tantalizes men and terrorizes women. There are legions of us in denial about our attentiveness to body image. We want to be thin, but we don't want to seem like we do. It's uncool to talk about your body, no one wants to hear it because it usually reminds them of their own physical grievances. So we pretend everything is okay, that we are living in a post-feminist society well beyond the battle of the body beautiful. You can avoid carbs and fat and call it allergies or food sensitivities. You can imitate celebrities who are always proclaiming they don't work out and live on cheeseburgers and ice cream(because really, the horseshoes of metabolic luck are only bestowed on the rich and gorgeous) and no one will call you on it, because so many of us are doing the exact same thing...

Who do we take to task for this rampant demoralization based on physicality? Advertising agencies? The fashion industry? Ourselves? Is there any one guilty party? Or are we just buying into the idea that if we are as near as possible to aesthetic perfection, we won't be as prone to loneliness or depression or mortal concerns, like dying alone, unloved, untouched, in our size ten(but really size twelve) pants...

I guess all I can do is hope for a day when our society commends women for what they do with their hearts and brains and guts, and not for how little physical space they take up. When our empowerment as women comes from the assertions of our rights to equality and respect.

Me, I'm taking on the fight. One badly-lit changeroom at a time.