Moving down the stack

Not unlike a lot of women, I've got a stack of jeans in my drawer. At the bottom is the holy grail - size six. They move on up from there. I've just tossed out the largest pairs, and I'm down to fitting into the ones I haven't been able to zip for about a year. Oddly enough, they're all the same size. Every single one of them are labeled size eight, and they're from the same manufacturer. However, one group is about a year and a half older than the other group.

Before I tossed the too-big pants, I held them up to the smaller group to see what the difference was. It's an amazing two inches. Yup, in the past year and a half, size eight jeans from this manufacturer got two inches bigger in the waist and hips, and so did I.

That's really sneaky.

Oh, on some level, I knew it; I couldn't zip the old size eights anymore. But I was perfectly willing to overlook that and go on happily, telling myself that I was okay as long as I was wearing a size eight. It was the tag that counted, and the manufacturers know that. They're perfectly willing to play into my little delusion; they knew that I would continue to buy new clothes as long as they have "size eight" written on the tag.

And I'm sure I'm not alone.

Of course, now my mind is reeling. If size eight jeans got two inches bigger, then what happened to size six jeans? Are they two inches bigger, too? Am I really a size six, in today's sizes, right now? And about those sixes at the bottom of the stack - which are much older than any of the size eights - are they really fours in today's sizes? Or even smaller than that?

I'm not going to find out, yet; I'm committed to not buying new clothes, or even trying any on, until my birthday, at the end of May. I want to give myself enough time to make a real change; and, in any case, I've got a few more sizes in the stack to get through before then, so there's no risk of running out.

But it definitely gave me something to think about; it gives me hope that I really am uncovering a thinner me.