Problems with America, Part I

i promised the rant- here's one part of it.

just a week ago, i returned from a mission trip to India, and there is more coming regarding that in due time.  there's still some to be processed and thought through, and that takes longer than some people are willing to wait, it seems.

but going on a trip like that really changes your perspective on many things. and while in a multitude of ways India is much the same as it was centuries ago, it does so many things right.  for instance, please take a good look at the picture below.  just look.  then feel free to bust out laughing, as i did.

those are my pants!!  MY PANTS!!

they have a fantabulous name in India, but i don't speak any of Taligu, so you'll have to take my work for it. 

i spent a whole 18 days surrounded by beautiful people in absolutely stunning clothing.  beauty everywhere, and half the women  wearing pants like that with their punjabi tops. their outfits really are one size fits all- the only decision you have to make is which colors and patterns.  there are only 3 trillion in each store you enter. no big deal :P it was any girl's dream- well, not any girl's.

fast forward 2 weeks.  i'm back in america, and even liking it. i have a new respect for dentists, trashcans, indoor plumbing, cars, air conditioning and hamburgers.

the problem: after either 2 or 3 years, one of my 2 pairs of jeans is now wearing thin to the point of fraying/ripping right below one of my pockets on the right side. they're super comfortable, i love the pockets and was/have been thrilled to find a pair of jeans that are my size. then i walked into Kohl's, the only place so far that i've had any luck finding suitable jeans.

all of a sudden, size has to matter.  shape has to matter. numbers have to matter. without realizing it, stupid little things started to matter. there is a reason why i despise clothes shopping, and that is it. well that, and the twisted notion that has flooded society: that every female looks good in skinny jeans and "jeggings." i literally feel just a bit dumber having typed that word.  i don't count either or those as "pants" and maintain my position that every pair would do more good as fire-starter material than covering a person, which they can't even do, even on a tiny, skinny person who "fits" them. even if they do "fit" they show more than i really care to see outside the hospital room when i'm not on duty and when you don't have a really really good reason for clueing me in. 

there are as many body types/shapes/sizes as there are humans, and america has put every girl into a perfect set-up-to-fail situation. first, because we value freedom, individuality, humanism and liberal secularism, we say that every girl is pretty, no matter what dress/pant size she is, no matter what color/condition her skin is, no matter how short/tall.

but then again, we say that it's not really true, and that the larger the number stitched in the back, the "slightly less" pretty you are.  then, just to make sure you can't succeed, we make the same sized pants with larger numbers every year, so that by staying the same size, you're actually increasing in pant size and therefore not only can you feel like a failure, you can't ever find a stupid pair of jeans that fits when you need one. 

i'm not even kidding you.  i don't own a scale at all.  i had to borrow a friend's to weigh my suitcases before i left, so i know exactly how much a weighed every day before i left, each time i re-weighed the suitcases.  even though i love Indian food and not once went hungry more than an hour, i still somehow managed to lose 4 pounds. i know i don't need to lose weight, and it was not intentional.

but in need of a pair of pants, size 7, and FINALLY finding ONE single pair that size (that was not of the "skinny jeans" or "jeggings" or "emo-full-of-holes" varieties), all i learned was that i am now a size 11.  that' s double digits now, folks!!  and part of me was surprised.  part was disgusted with the pant makers, but part of it just poked that part in my brain where everyone wonders what's wrong with them and needs to find something to blame, even if it's not blameworthy.  i know  that i really haven't changed much at all in the past couple years, but somehow i felt like society was passing judgment on me and now thought less of me for failing their standards (which aren't "standard" at all, if you think about it).  

rant almost done.

Dear America,

stop torturing your own- please!!  for the sake of the young ones, and the sanity of us all.  good glory- PICK A STUPID SIZING SYSTEM AND STICK WITH IT!

if it's 34 inches around, CALL IT 34 INCHES. don't call it size 13 one year and size 21 the next, or whatever number you want.  NOT HELPFUL.

if you want every girl scout in the nation to hear that she is beautiful no matter what, why don't you follow that up with an honest standard of measurement so she can just walk into a store, buy whatever number jeans she wants and then get on with her life, doing what she loves with those she wants to be with instead of fretting and scrambling through shelves for hours, trying to make herself fit the popular style of clothes so she'll feel accepted.  an overweight girl already knows she's overweight.  changing the jeans size won't help or change her.  what will help? why don't you just give her a hug, grab her hand and a frisbee and go hang out in the park, or study together in Starbucks, or spend some time and altogether too much money in Hobby Lobby expressing what's awesome inside you that has almost nothing to do with external and temporal circumstances and circumferences.

the first time i saw those pants, i swallowed all kinds of pride and skepticism, "knowing" that i was too tall, too small, too white, too whatever, to wear those.  most americans would just die at the thought of trying on something so … not normal, afraid of looking huge or ugly or non-standard.

guess what.  i'm not standard. relative to most Indians, yes, i am a freakin' giant, but their promise was true- the pants still fit perfectly, and i had a blast wearing those all over the place. they'd be size 50 or 60-something, but i don't care.  they didn't, either. they looked amazing- more so because they just weren't concerned about it. 

yes, i am a girl, and sometimes care altogether too much about what others think of me and how i look and how i dress and crave praise and being noticed just as much, or even more, than many other girls.  only females can know just how aggravating it is, living with so many fluid standards and goals and promises when all we want is to just. be. a. girl.

… so i put on the freakishly huge pair of pants and ran with it.  literally.