19.

DON’T TELL A WOMAN TO JUST WEAR JEANS

You’d have more room in the closet if you got rid of some of those jeans,” my husband at the time casually noted long ago. One of the many loving, insightful observations he made that sealed his doom.

“I can’t get rid of any of the jeans! They don’t fit!” I remember answering, giving him a chance to redeem himself. Inviting the hug of compassion that any female friend would know was appropriate.

He only stared. Stared and asked, “You can’t get rid of jeans that don’t fit?” as if I were the one not making any sense.

At that point in our marriage, I knew it was pointless to try defending my position. It wouldn’t make him understand or like me one speck more. It might even make him view me as a doomed spouse and put him in the emotionally self-righteous lead.

“There are only ex-husbands. There are never ex-jeans!” That’s what I’d say if he were here today. Hah.

But he’s not here. I am standing alone in front of the same closet. A closet that’s all mine now. I take a good look and sigh.

I’d have more room in the closet if I got rid of some of these jeans, I think.

The e-vite that made me face the closet this morning arrived one hour ago. A classic example of the deterioration of social graces for which the twenty-first century will surely be known. Invitations used to be delivered by the U.S. Post Office at least two weeks before an event. The pretty You’re Invited! card could be stuck on the refrigerator door—right between us and the food—a tangible reminder of the good choices we hoped to make if we wanted to get into what we hoped to get into on party day.

Today’s invitation popped up on my iPhone email while I was brushing my teeth after my second heart-healthy, 310-calorie bowl of breakfast granola this morning. The party’s in two days. The perky, unbelievably cruel directive reads: “Just wear jeans!” Which is why I’m standing here at 9:00 a.m., in fiber-filled pj’s, facing what was nowhere on the list to deal with for the foreseeable future: the jeans section of my closet.

There it is. My denim diary. My great big blue stack of heartache and hope. Fat jeans, medium jeans, skinny jeans, really skinny jeans, jeans that fit for fifteen seconds before breakfast after the stomach flu on a low-humidity day in 1987—the ones I still think of as my “real size.” Jeans I saved to remind myself how big I used to be. Jeans I saved to remind myself how little I used to be. Jeans I could never, ever get rid of because of the victories they represent, the defeats I need to remember, the pain I’d feel if I ever had to spend money buying some of those sizes again. Jeans covering the entire span of human potential.

I try on just enough pairs to confirm what I already suspect: I have jeans covering the entire span of everything but me. Twelve pairs of jeans. Not one pair that has anything to do with the version of myself that needs to “just wear jeans” in forty-eight hours.

It isn’t as though the issue hasn’t come up lately. Ninety-nine percent of the blouses, tank tops, jackets, sweaters, wraps, and sweat shirts in my closet were bought because they’d be “perfect with jeans.” When none of the jeans fit, the whole wardrobe is useless. The jeans control everything. I stare at the lifeless stack. Of course I don’t have to wear jeans to the party. I could wear the long skirt or stretchy workout pants that have been making it possible for me to leave the house lately. But every woman knows that would be to admit defeat. That would be letting the blue jeans win.

An hour later I march into the last place on earth a woman my age should go to buy blue jeans: a blue jean store. I’m unfazed by the 5,000 pairs of jeans lining the walls and stacked on the tables, which have intimidated me in the past. Not put off by the youth culture into which I have just stepped or the screaming music that surely is cranked up so loud so it will drown out the wails of parents when their children lead them to the cash register to pay $90 for faded-out pants with holes in them. Music that mostly keeps people my age out.

Not today.

Blue jeans belong to people my age, and I’ve come to claim what’s rightly mine. My generation made blue jeans cool. We made jeans essential. We were the founding mothers and fathers of the universe in which jeans now roam freely—the original laid-back, kicked-back, rebel-against-restrictions, “just wear jeans” people. I flash back to college, to the transformation I watched on the Diag of the University of Michigan, the place every student crossed and gathered every day. It was my freshman year—the year 12,000 U of M coeds ditched the nice preppy college skirts and button-down blouses our moms had just spent the summer buying, ironing, and packing. We ditched them and changed into jeans. Changed into different people. Changed into people who could say NO to all kinds of things, including skirts, blouses, underwear, and irons.

Jeans were the uniform of awakening. They helped free the voices of some of us who had no idea we had anything to say. Even a shy girl from Midland, Michigan, who had never, ever rebelled against anything. Even if I still obeyed all the rules, even if I only actually watched the whole revolution from the side, jeans connected me to something beyond the safe bubble in which I grew up. They were the opposite of prim skirts. Jeans were loose and comfortable; they literally felt like women’s minds started to feel—less restricted, free to challenge rules, question norms, rebel against roles.

Jeans leveled the playing field. Men and women wore the exact same ones. And because we did, jeans were honest. They didn’t send mixed messages, hurt, or make us feel bad about ourselves. Everyone had one pair of basically the same brand, style, and fit, two pairs at the most. It was unthinkable that there would be a different look or that anyone would ever outgrow the ones they already owned. Our jeans were made of denim that gently softened and shaped to the people who wore them, never insulted anyone by springing back to their original brand-new state. Faded denim was earned, not bought. Those sweet, forgiving, naturally faded pants. Those glory days of life before memory fibers.

I sold my Econ 101 textbook back to the bookstore in my third week to buy my first pair. I bought jeans and flunked Econ. The jeans seemed way more relevant.

“Can I help you find something?”

I’m startled back to the present. I turn to face the salesperson standing next to me. She’s eighteen, I’m guessing, the exact age I was when I got my first pair of loose, liberating, life-changing college jeans.

The jeans she’s wearing are shredded stretch denim, sort of like a half-body girdle with holes. Peeking out of the hole on her right thigh is a tattoo of what might be the Little Mermaid. Hot pink jewels form a cute, sparkly peace sign next to her crotch. Her shrink-wrapped denim ankles are planted in peekaboo, half-unlaced construction worker boots with four-inch heels. She looks free, but it’s unclear from what.

How on earth did we get from me to her?

How is it that as soon as unisex jeans went out of favor and companies started designing “women’s cut” versions, jeans became something many women couldn’t fit into? What happened to all those dreams on the Diag that turned my generation’s uniform of emancipation into this salesperson’s saucy denim girdle? How did the pants that leveled the playing field become another cause for tears in the dressing room or in front of closet mirrors? How did my generation let jeans, which were the definition of happy clothes, turn into something stacked up in our own closets that don’t even fit us?? I need answers. I need accountability.

“Um . . . hello?? Are you looking for something?” the salesperson repeats.

“I need some jeans,” I answer. Understatement of the century.

“What size?” she asks. Insane question of the century.

No turning back now. I’m full of granola and indignation. Absolutely no reason to not be 100 percent honest about my size.

“I wear a size 8, 32, 14, 10, 6, or a 0,” I announce. “In some stores I’m a 000. Some manufacturers make their 10’s fit like 4’s, which might make me a 16. Some make their 12’s fit like 6’s, which would make me 9. However, a dozen different size 9’s can fit completely differently even if I’m having a ‘perfect size 9 day.’ In some jeans, I’m a 2. Once I was a 34. I might be a 7.”

“Awesome,” she says. She kind of peeks around me, glances at my butt, grabs three pairs off a stack, and hands them to me. I look down at them in my hand without even unfolding them.

“Do you have any jeans with zippers longer than two inches?”

“No.”

“Well then, never mind.” I hand the jeans back and move on.

If the e-vite had said “just wear a swimsuit,” it would have been only slightly worse, I think while entering the next store, which has music and clothes more appropriate for my age. At least a swimsuit is a swimsuit. At least a different swimsuit isn’t required for every different occasion. Women’s jeans don’t only have to fit the body, they have to fit the event. Did the invitation’s instruction to “just wear jeans” mean elegant jeans? Dressy jeans? Casual jeans? Earthy jeans? Straight leg? Boot cut? Flare? High rise? Cropped? Skinny crop? Baggy crop? Tomgirl? Boyfriend? Dressy dark denim? Casual dark denim? Super-casual, baggy fit, distressed denim with fancy pumps? Stone-washed shredded denim with stiletto sandals? Super-thin, non-stretchy smooth denim with ankle booties? Faded denim leggings with flats?

Maybe because I’m a driven member of the Blue Jean Generation, I have the will and stamina to persevere. I’ve watched my daughter give up in tears after trying on the first ten or fifteen pairs. But I march on . . . through this store . . . this mall . . . through another mall . . . through other department stores . . . specialty stores . . . shops for mature women . . . many, many, many dressing rooms . . .

And finally . . . after what feels like a thousand failed tries . . . I pull on some jeans that sort of feel as if they could belong on me. As if they might actually fit. I squint into the mirror in disbelief. I twist and peer at myself from every angle. Do they actually fit my body, or do they merely fit how desperate I am to go home and put on sweat pants? Am I so beaten down that I’ll take anything? Have I looked at myself in so many pairs of bad jeans today that I’m incapable of seeing what’s wrong with this picture, or is there nothing wrong? The zipper zips . . . the button buttons . . . nothing hurts . . . They might be okay, I think. They might even be good. I stand back from the mirror. Sort of casual, sort of dressy—a bold statement of ambiguity that’s a perfect match for the contradictory feelings I have when I peek at the price tag and see that I’ll be paying $145 for them.

I feel good enough that I open the door to the dressing room and let the salesperson see them on me. Good enough that I ask her to help me find pieces to complete the look for my upcoming party. We choose an arty tunic that hits mid-thigh and lovely suede boots that come to the top of my calf, so only seven vertical inches of denim are actually visible on either leg. It’s summer in Los Angeles, but in a city that both reveres edgy fashion and prays for rain, a woman wearing boots on a hundred-degree July day can be seen as totally hip or totally hopeful, not necessarily one who’s trying to cover anything.

I drive home exhausted and conflicted, but also triumphant. I put my new jeans on top of the stack in my closet. I’ll never get rid of them, even if the day comes when they’re too big or too small. I step back to admire what I’ve accomplished. All the blouses, tank tops, jackets, sweaters, wraps, and sweat shirts make sense again. All the things I’ve pledged to sort and unload suddenly have purpose and possibility because they’re “perfect with jeans” and I own jeans that fit. Jeans that will not only get me to the party in two days, but give me a great big respite from sorting out the rest of my closet for a long time to come.

I feel a familiar little rush of freshman year. Feel a little bit liberated.

Once again, my blue jeans have set me free.