Backstory 15: Skinny Jeans

Does anyone else keep old clothing around, to serve as a nostalgic time stamp of a certain time of life?

I do. 

And I’ve taught my girls to do the same. Except with my girls, we have a home for that clothing and we call it our "memory box."

If they’ve outgrown a certain special item, toy or piece of clothing they’ll holler “memory box!” And it gets tossed with love and respect into the bin. 

Me? I don’t have a set aside memory box for my old clothes; instead I just have my drawers which contain a lot of once adored clothing that seldom, if ever get worn., and still take up space in my drawers because a part of me won’t let go, another piece of me feels like someday I'll wear it again...but then someday never comes.

And every now and then, depending on the mood I’m in, I will try to give an old piece of clothing some game time and I’ll try it on, but then it goes back into my drawer.

And one rainy Saturday night in October 2025 was one of those nights with my 2011 skinny jeans. 

But let’s back up. 

What led up to that moment was that I’d been feeling really good in my body the last few days. I’d been walking a lot, riding the bike a lot, eating well and treating my body more lovingly than usual. And yesterday when I put on my bathing suit bottoms in preparation for a family beach visit, I felt my bathing suit buttons were a little looser on me than usual, and I felt my heart swell in excitement.

Had I entered my skinny mom era? Eeek! Fun!!! 

And the whole day felt like I had a fun little secret tucked away in my soul. I loved the excitement of entering a new era…

That night after beach time we were off to family karaoke, so after I took a shower, I felt a magnetic draw to our bedroom, where there’s a plastic bin with multiple drawers that holds my less used, more Autumn vibe clothes. 

And since the rainy season in Costa Rica is about as close to an Autumn season vibe as we get, I opened the drawer and saw them staring at me. 

My 2011 skinny jeans.

They were the first pair of jeans I’d bought since college and they represented the most money I’d ever spent on jeans. They came from “Cake,” a boutique clothing store on Main Street in Park City, Utah, and I remember the exact moment and how I felt when I bought them. 

It was May 2011 and when I entered Cake, the attractive and hip owner, Katie, was there, and I introduced myself as Harriet from Align Spa, and she knew me, and kindly asked if I was seeking anything in particular.

Yes! I replied with excitement. I am here for jeans.

Not just any jeans though, I wanted jeans to capture this new skinny era I knew I was in, though I knew it wouldn't be an era I’d be in for long.

You see I’d just knocked out my 4 front teeth in a ski accident on December 26, 2010, and I had to have what was called a “flipper” in my mouth, which was a retainer with 4 prosthetic teeth on it. This removable retainer was intended to give my mouth and gums time to heal and rebuild from the trauma of me smashing myself in the mouth with my own ski pole. The flipper gave me a funny party trick of being able to remove my retainer and flash friends and family an unexpected gummy smile. The other thing my flipper did was mean that my diet had been restricted to only liquid or soft foods. And with that adjustment in food intake, I lost a lot of weight very quickly. 

Around that same time my sister noticed my shrinking size and approached me with a deep concern that I had an eating disorder. And I agreed with her that I did…but it wasn’t like most eating disorders. I wanted to eat the foods I loved, but I couldn’t because I had a flipper in my mouth and no front set of teeth of my own to chew. And not being able to eat solid foods accidentally ushered in my skinny era. 

I thanked my sister for her concern, and told her I still had several more months of this disordered eating thanks to my retainer with teeth, but I promised her to be better about getting more calories in me. 

But what I also did during this new skinny era was go shopping for clothes to fit this new body I had, which was barely 100 pounds. 

I maintained my C sized boobs thanks to the breast implants I had at the time, so that made me look even more like an idealized version of the female body type. I had very skinny legs and big boobs…yay, fun!

So let’s go get some skinny jeans to capture this current vibe of femininity I was in.

So that’s what brought me to “Cake Boutique“ that spring day in 2011.

I tried on a few sixes, and Katie and I agreed that size 26 was best for me. And I remembered that in high school I had size 28 jeans from "Big Star" that I loved, so a small piece of me patted myself on the back for shrinking to below high school size to fit the moment I was in. 

Life went on, and I got new teeth several months later and I got to retire my flipper retainer. I also slowly began to gain weight, and piece by piece I began to sell or give away a lot of my cherished skinny era Lululemon pants and other items that I’d acquired. I even had several pairs size 00 pants from Old Navy that I felt so sad to rehome. But the Cake Boutique jeans? They stayed with me; I refused to sell them or give them away for some reason.

After moving to Costa Rica in July of 2013 I paired down a lot of my Autumn or Winter clothes to the bare minimum and kept mostly the warm weather clothes and the rest went into storage in Park City. But for some reason the Cake jeans made the cut and followed me to Costa Rica.

I remember a few years into my Costa Rica journey, I decided to try on and wear my Cake skinny jeans on a night out with some new lady friends, and though they were very snug, I got them on. But soon enough,  I knelt down to pick something off the floor and both knees split open. Dang it skinny jeans, you're failing me.

But still, I kept the skinny jeans in my drawer, and even brought them to a tailor to put patches over the knees.  That was how deep my determination was to keep these jeans alive in my life. But why? I couldn’t figure it out. And so they went back into my drawer. 

Until last Saturday night for family karaoke.

I had my towel around me after my shower, and I removed my skinny jeans slowly from the plastic drawer, and held them up. I loved how soft they were. I dried myself off completely and slowly stepped my left foot into one side of the jeans and began to pull them up. 

My body screamed no. They hardly budged up my lower leg and it felt nearly impossible to inch them up my body.

But did I stop there and grab a different option?

No. 

I was determined to get these things onto my body. So I stepped my right foot in and took a few minutes to slowly inch them all the way up and over my rear end, and sucking in my breath to make it work. I pulled the two sides of the buttons together to close the jeans around my waist and I had to hold my breath to get them to close. But they did, even though the zipper wouldn’t close all the way. 

I looked in the mirror, proud I had gotten them on, and I chose a shirt to forgivingly cover my waist so as not to reveal the “muffin top” of my skin over the waist band.

This would be my karaoke attire, though it was hard to move around and especially hard to sit down.

Determination vs discomfort and the latter won. 

I was so uncomfortable in those jeans the whole night, and I felt like a zombie walking around. I almost wanted to end the night early a few times due to my discomfort, because all I wanted to do was get home and tear them off me.  I drank water throughout the night and regretted it, because going to the bathroom was so hard; I had such a hard time getting the damn jeans on and off.

And for what reason was I putting myself through this agony?

So I could commemorate or relive my skinny era of 2011? 

Hmm, probably not, but I was confused because I didn’t have an answer. 

But regardless of not having an answer I made a decision. 

It was time for these skinny jeans to leave my drawer forever and go with gratitude into the family memory box. I am no longer a size 26 and I don’t want to try and force myself to try and be that size either. I am relocating the jeans in order to make space for jeans or pants that fit the mom body I have now. I’ve birthed two beautiful children and love myself for who and how I am.

Adios skinny era, I’m in my body loving mom era. 

Love,