Lost and Found

I was looking for clothes to take to a resale store to get a little cash for Christmas shopping this weekend and I found a box in my closet that’s been there since we moved in to this house; it started out with only the yarn I got from my grandma after she died that I used most of it to make a blanket that we use at the park or Jacob and Josh’s soccer games but I’ve got a ball or two left and I’m not sure exactly what to make now if anything but I can’t throw them away so in the box they go, and lots of stuff have gotten tossed into the box over the years, things that don’t fit or don’t get used anymore but things that I don’t want to throw away. It’s not too bad considering it’s only the one box. So yesterday I’m going through my hanging clothes and finding close to nothing that anyone would pay for and then I see the box and there are some jeans on top so I’m going through those and thinking hey why not humiliate myself in the privacy of my own room, no one else will see me cry and so I tried on these jeans. Just to force myself to throw them out you know, because this one last time if they don’t fit I’ll get rid of them, I need the cash.
Before I get to that, how many of you are on a diet right now? How’s that working out for you? I remember the first diet I ever went on. I was a junior in high school and my mom wanted to try Sugar Busters and I decided to do it with her, more as a support system than anything, more to the point I can remember the last day of that diet I drove strait to Sonic and got a Rout 44 Strawberry Limeade. It was the most disgusting thing I’d ever tasted. But I finished it, because there is a fundamental objective to dieting and when you accomplish that goal you need to celebrate, I celebrated a few months of no sugar by drinking the equivalent of all I’d missed in one beverage. Anyhow, this new diet I’m on now, I’m not losing any weigh and I’m not really accomplishing any goals I’d set for myself, probably because they are all weight related, so about a week ago I quit weighing myself, just screw it. I’m making a change in my eating habits I’m not dieting anymore. And I’m not stressing the diet either, because it’s not a diet it’s a lifestyle. And if that lifestyle includes a slice of pizza here and there or cream in my coffee so be it. So yeah, all of that and now back to the jeans in my closet. They are 32’s from four years ago when I first started working at my job with Adam. I haven’t been able to wear them since before I was thinking about getting pregnant with Laine. I stuck one leg in, expecting to get it hung up on my fat flabby knees but it went up and over, so I stuck the other leg in and wiggled and jumped and tah-dah, I pulled them up and over my ass and buttoned them and everything. Amazing! Angels singing! I took pictures, I strutted down the hall, I did a squat or two, and I haven’t taken them off for three days.

Here’s a photo because it’s amazing.

Back to the box though, beneath those jeans were old bathing suits (that do not fit over my fat flabby behind) and near the bottom, not folded so it must have accidentally fallen in was one of my grandpa’s cardigan sweaters. I had just talked to my mom the other day about how I had two of his sweaters that I just didn’t know where they were. I found one the day before in the entry way closet and I took it out to try it on and a button fell off and made me cry so I’m not sure why I was surprised when I pulled out this other sweater that it put me on my ass. My fingers grazed it and I felt that material and I knew exactly what it was and instead of snatching it up I pulled the box out into the center of the closet and I peeled everything else away from it until that sweater was the only thing on top and I had to sit down because I could smell it. It didn’t smell completely like Pawpaw but it was close enough and I sat and I cried and I missed my grandpa like I haven’t missed him in years. I’m wearing his cardigan now. It’s a little itchy and surprisingly a little small for me. I never thought of myself as larger than my grandpa, he was huge, but that could have just been his character, he was a great big character. I’m sitting here in a giant mans small itchy sweater and I think about how I never wanted to take it off, that it is probably the most comfortable thing I’ve ever worn.