I'm Never Wearing Jeans Again

 My Closet: No jeans, two fur vests and a pair of green zebra print shorts

I've always hated jeans. When I was a kid they were stiff and uncomfortable. I preferred stretch pants and bicycle shorts with matching patterned tops. As a teenager I could never find a pair that was long enough in the leg or didn't make my butt look saggy. I tore out the hems of my jeans and wore flip flops just so the bottoms would graze the floor.

Skinny jeans made my life a little easier in college because they were tighter and stretchier (no saggy butt) and I could tuck them into boots (no one could see they were flood pants on me). But I still didn't like them. Since I was working and paying for all my own stuff I even went to fancy boutiques and tried on Rock and Republic and 7 For All Mankind jeans, willing to spend hundreds of dollars of my hard earned money just for good jeans! But they let me down as well and the stack of unworn jeans in my closet grew.

The closest thing I had to a pair that I loved were Guess skinnies I bought at a store closing sale. If there had been more, I would've bought them in an instant, but instead I was stuck with only one pair of light wash jeans that actually fit me. Side note: I hate light wash jeans most of all. These I took with me to Japan along with three other pairs I literally never wore.

That's how dangerously I roll. I only pack one pair of fitting jeans with me to take to country with a notoriously short and skinny population.

As anyone could predict, I wore them to death and they developed holes. Not grungy knee holes even. No, they developed completely unsexy crotch holes. And "near the zipper" holes making them dangerously close to inoperable. I seriously could not wear them anywhere with how often one sits on the floor in Japan. A few trips to Tokyo to try on jeans proved what everyone already knew: If I had a hard time finding jeans in America, it was going to be damned near impossible to find any in Japan.

So it was initially out of necessity that I first said I would never wear jeans. I bought skirts and dresses, tights and leggings, shorts and knit pants. It was great! I was so much more comfortable! I didn't have to wear a utilitarian belt or worry about flashing butt crack. My clothes didn't get stretched out and develop 5pm butt-sag. I felt more dressed up and pretty and I put more thought into mixing my small wardrobe.

Now that I'm settled back in the U.S. the decades long hunt for good jeans could continue, but I'm really sick of it. Jeans never made me feel sexy or cool. They were always such a struggle and an evil necessity. As a middle-class Midwestern American, I never even knew a world without jeans existed. What was there besides jeans? Now that I know its possible to live without a single pair in my closet I feel so... free? Corny, yeah, but I do!

I often get comments from my friends and family that I'm "too dressed up" or they say things like "you're wearing that to the store?". But who cares, I look good and feel good and I'm twenty-six years old, I can wear whatever I want!

Excuse me as I have to go don a ball gown and buy some grapes at the grocery store.