Baggy Sweatpants, Reeboks with the Strap

About two weeks ago, something strange happened. I got home from an evening out and headed to the master bedroom to change into something more comfortable before spending time with my husband. I was wearing a sweater over a tank top and after taking off the sweater, I literally said “screw it” and kept the tank top on.

As in the words actually came loudly out of my mouth while standing alone in my bathroom.

(Here is where – if we knew each other better – I’d also admit to using that bra removal trick from the dinner scene of Flashdance, but I’m afraid that’s oversharing.)

Rather than grab a pair of pajama pants, I then headed to my closet and pulled down my gray sweatpants.

A quick word about those sweatpants: They were purchased in a Disney resort gift shop fifteen minutes before heading to the airport after I announced that I was so exhausted, the idea of wearing real pants for a moment longer was too much to bear. Sweatpants were purchased, I changed in the lobby bathroom, and for the rest of our travels I was That Lady who wears sweats on a plane.

A tired old black tank I’ve had since college. Gray sweats I picked up in a gift shop because the idea of PANTS had pushed me to the brink. I rolled the top three times, shoved them to my hips, and headed out to watch TV with my man. That’s when I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, hair pulled up in a high pony, one leg of the sweats slightly higher than the other for shear laziness.

I almost expected to see high tops on my feet and hoop earrings in my ears.

And Salt N Pepa playing on my walkman.

I was so comfortable in my ratty tank and sweats, eating my popcorn and drinking my Malbec, that I’ve repeated the look nearly every night since then. I make it to about an hour after dinner if I can muster the strength to hold out that long, then I slip up the stairs and grab an old tank and sweatpants. I get schlubbing around – that’s the official word for it in our house – but this has felt like one step further down the road to giving up. I distinctly remember as a child fearing that my dad would one day answer the door in his underwear. It was bad enough that he insisted on mowing the grass while shirtless in a swimsuit that should have been retired about a decade earlier, but clearly he felt the same Burden of Pants Wearing that now sometimes overwhelms me.

What other signs of completely giving up are waving their red flags in my face? The three empty water cups stacked neatly on my bedside stand because there’s no reason to walk them down to the kitchen every time one is emptied? The fact that the only way to currently distinguish clean laundry from dirty in my bedroom is that the dirty laundry isn’t folded in the basket? The sparkly teal Christmas tree still sitting on the table in the foyer because I got THIS CLOSE to putting away all of the decorations before saying…

Yes. Screw it.

I do commit to still take the time to put on pants before answering the door. Promise.