196; My Back To School Shopping

I went shopping yesterday.  Kind of like back to school shopping.  I used to love back to school shopping.  All those new clothes and office supplies.  Shiny and new and mine.  It was my favorite part of the year! A few pieces of clothing that could be worn while I work from home, wear to the office and wear out when Pete and I go do things.

I think I spent 2 hours in Kohls pushing around the shopping cart and adding things.  It was difficult, both physically and mentally.  Physically I ended up going back to the carts and getting one with 4 wheels so I wasn't using so much effort to push that cart around.  Mentally.  Well mentally I was all over the place.

I feel like I disliked my body and the way it felt to be in it so I went on this long journey to lose weight.  I lost almost 100 pounds and had this new body.  It took me a while to get used to it.  To learn the curves and the angles.  To learn how to dress this new body.  I finally become used to this body and my new life and again I have changes.  I have this surgery that changes my waist, hips and abdomen. 

So here I am again, trying to learn this body.  I'm trying to learn the curves again.  And once again I'm left wondering if the size that I'm at now will be the size that I remain?  I'm in medium shirts for the most part; still the same shirt size.  But pants?  Boy this is gonna be a ride.  At this point I still have to wear this binder while I'm awake.  It's about 10 inches wide of elastic and Velcro.  I wrap it around my waist and hips as tightly as I can and put clothes over it.  It does add bulk.

I tried on 2 paid of pants; a khaki stretchy jean and blue jeans.  The jeans I couldn't get zipped and they didn't come over my thighs all the way  So I just put those back and bought a size up; size 16.  For the other jeans, I fit into my 14.  But at this point, it['s not pretty.  The thighs are tight, but because of how the pants are made, the waist is snug (with the binder).  I bought them and I'm going to keep them in the closet with the receipt to think about.  The jeans that I bought?  Well, when I got home they fit in the thighs nicely.  But, they gap in the waist; my usual problem.  So they are going back.

I feel somewhat like I am back in the same place as I was a year ago, frustrated with my new body and trying to figure it out.  At times I want to give up and go back.  At times I wish that I hadn't rocked the cart, so to speak.  But logically I know that this is but a bump in my journey to get where I want to and I just need to keep moving forward.