Put Your Jeans On

I put my jeans on yesterday. I don’t wear them too often now – it’s mainly sweatpants, riding pants or leggings. To be honest the leggings often double as riding pants, and in fact are actually work out pants. But I don’t work out anymore. The thing is, I want to be comfortable. I want to be able to sit down or drive or work at my desk, or do housework without the jeans digging into my belly. I haven’t felt comfortable in my jeans in a long time.

But this isn’t about fat, or weight loss, or anything else regarding the belly-digging waistband of jeans. This is about feeling different.

I had lunch with a friend yesterday. Wearing my sweatpants as usual. Didn’t think anything of it, as I am generally pretty comfortable in whatever I wear, physically and mentally. I don’t worry about what other people think. We talked a lot about things going on in our lives, and about her “life coach” and how she wishes I would contact her and make a “vision board” for myself. See, my friend knows how lost I’ve felt these past few years. How I can’t even see my way past yesterday. How bereft without my anchors – my parents – and all the loss and trauma that has followed me around such as losing both of my house cats and then Bruno’s injury, so shortly after my Dad’s death. How it kills me to go visit my Mom, kills me to see her this way, and nothing I can do to fix it, except to just keep going, keep loving her, keep being there.

My friend knows how I haven’t felt like riding because my body hurts so much. How I ride anyway and then berate myself for not being able to do as much as I used to do, when I was younger and in less pain. How I hate that I physically can’t ride as well/as long as before. And how there’s just so much else that I have to do that my own body definitely doesn’t take any type of priority. 9 acres and 11 horses, one of the them being confined to a stall, is a lot for any two people to handle. On top of teaching lessons, other jobs, going to horseshows and taking care of Baby Girl and going to visit my Mom – well, it’s just a lot. And somewhere in all of that I lost my way a little bit. I just keep going because that’s what you do – you just pull your boot straps up a little tighter and you keep going, day by day, hour by hour.

Back to the jeans.

Yesterday when I got home I put my jeans on and went to the barn. My barn is a wreck right now. With Bruno being stall bound, and just STUFF everywhere, I just haven’t had the energy or motivation to do anything about it. Usually (like most horse people) I would rather clean my barn than my house. But not lately. Yesterday was a lovely, warm day. Unprecedented weather for January. And something about that weather and those jeans combined – well I got to work. Unfortunately I didn’t have much time to work before the first lesson showed up, but it felt good to be working in my barn. It felt good to be wearing jeans and paddock boots instead of sweatpants and tennis shoes. It felt good not to worry about that waist-digging and to sweep, and clean and throw shit away. It felt good to talk to Bruno while I worked. I was happy to clean his stall and fill up his water buckets. I considered re-staining some of my jump standards and made plans for what I will do today. It felt good to know that tomorrow I could work in the barn the entire day and speak to no one but Bruno and feel my parents there with me but not have to feel sad about it. It felt good to feel good.

There’s just something about jeans and paddock boots to make a person feel right again. Something that whispers “hey you are still YOU and what’s more, you are YOUER than YOU when you wear these jeans so buck up and get to work.” The sun shining and no wind makes my heart happy. If it was summer I would mow some paddocks. I would rent a dumpster and do a huge barn clean out. I would rearrange the tack room. I would feel like ME again. And while I wait for summer I will paint some jump standards and I will sweep the barn and maybe organize the trailers. Maybe I’ll even vacuum them out. Maybe I’ll work so hard that I’ll forget the miseries, and I’ll forget that I’m bored and hungry. Maybe I’ll feel so good and do so much that I’ll be proud of me again. Satisfied with life. Satisfied with a little bit of sunshine and some dirt on my hands and shavings in my boots.

And all because of those jeans.