The Pants of Hope!

I wound up having to go shopping today for some new clothes. We were a couple hours from home, and I had attempted to fish at this lake we were visiting for the afternoon. I didn't catch any fish, but I did manage to wind up wading out up to my waist in my street clothes. Since everybody wanted to go into town for dinner, I pretty much had no alternative but to buy new clothes in town.

Shopping for clothes used to be such a humiliating experience that I just never did it. Maybe once a year. Otherwise my wife would pick up pants or some shirts for me now or then, and my mother can be counted on to give me a few shirts at X-mas, but that's about it. Shopping was horrible because I literally had no options. I was lucky if I could find one style of pants that fits me, and maybe if I'm lucky, one or two shirts. I never cared about fashion, I just grabbed whatever was available in my size and got out of there.

When I started this ordeal back in January, I was a 4X shirt and 54's for the pants. Today I was able to put together an outfit (ok, pants and a shirt) that was considerably smaller.

I even took a picture ...



Shirt size ... (drum roll please): 2X

I also found some 1X shirts in a different style that fit just as well as this 2X!

Pant size ... (more drumming): 42!

FOURTY-FREAKIN'-TWO!!! :noway: The pants were Levi's, which I haven't been able to find in my size in about a decade. And I bought them NOT because they were my only option ... but because I liked them the best!

My wife asked me if they were too tight, and I'll admit ... they did feel a bit snug on the two hour drive home. But, I explained to her that I had to buy them ... because these were the Pants of Hope!

We wound up subsequently going out to dinner, and I couldn't help but reflecting on how much that meant to me to be able to go buy clothes off the rack like a normal person. I almost felt like a thin person for minute. I could at least imagine myself being thin. It was such an odd feeling, but motivating! Of course ... moments later some dude walked in on me while I was taking pictures of myself in the bathroom and brought me back to reality. :blushing:

Edit:

Just for the sake of comparison, here's the "before" picture: