Woolen joymakers

That boundary of morbid obesity is still teasing me from less than three pounds´distance.
But there is one thing that makes me realize just how far I have come every morning, namely, my woolen pantyhose. I know, so not sexy, but it´s still in the tens centigrade below zero, and I´m using public transport to and from work, which means waiting at the tram stop for extended periods of time if there isn´t one coming up right when I arrive. With the greater part of my insulation layer recondensed, that means either shivering or putting on something warm underneath my jeans.
Now, for the last years, I had a definite problem there, because woolen pantyhose, hereabouts, is sold only up to a size 1XL. So, even the biggest pair on sale would only fit me by pulling and stretching it in directions these things aren´t made for, and even so, the panty part would reach only halfway up my bottom, and I had to keep pulling it up so as not to have them retreat into the nether parts of my pants legs. Usually, I preferred to freeze rather than subject myself to the ignominy of bunched-up hose at the lowest part of my pant seat. The existing pairs of warm hosiery were thus relegated to the back part of my stocking drawer.
This year, for the first time, those things fit. I can put them on as easily as I would a pair of nylon stockings, and they even stay up all day long without any retrieval maneuvres because the waist part is, well, at my waist.

Which reminds me every morning how far I have come, as does being able to put them on without wrestling with my legs and belly to reach my own feet. It´s a good kind of reminder because it would be all too easy to forget what it felt like to be too fat to put on pantyhose, what it felt like to become exhausted just by trying to close your own shoes. For several years, I wore open sandals without any stockings all summer because it was too difficult to put on stockings, or even proper shoes. Only by grabbing the lower part of my pants leg and pulling hard was I able at all to reach my feet, and even so, my legs kept slipping away from me. More than once, I ended up in a sweaty, crying, humiliated mess after having my slipaway feet tear up the last pair of hose or stockings I had. It was one of the bitterest lessons when being fat, that I had become too fat to dress myself properly.
I never want to go back to that place. But I mustn´t forget it either. It would be all too easy to take all those abilities that have come back with recondensing for granted. I don´t think anybody who never lost them could understand just how ridiculously happy such a small thing can make me- putting on hose when it´s cold.


Julia