So, I’ve got weight issues. Rather, I’ve got eating issues that make me have weight issues. In high school, I was borderline anorexic. In my late 20s, I was actively bulimic. Now, in my early 30s, apparently I’m just getting fat. I mean, not like FAT fat, but fat for me. Which is really just a little bit pudgy, I guess, but it feels awful.

Nobody is ever unaware that they’re gaining weight, right, I mean, most people can just tell. But everything was thrown into stark relief last night when, searching for something to wear to a business meeting in New York this Thursday, I pulled on my trouser jeans and they wouldn’t button. Not even close. Which makes me think that my old dress pants ALSO won’t fit, since I bought them around the same time.

I freaked out, went to Marshall’s, spent over $200 buying everything they had in a size 4, got home, tried it all on, and still felt like a little redheaded sausage wearing someone else’s clothes. This is not a happy time, and my unhappiness over my appearance is bleeding over into the rest of my life. It’s hard to feel good when you look like crap, and it’s hard to feel like you look good when NOTHING GODDAMN FITS RIGHT ANYMORE.

I want to cancel my trip to NY, I want to curl up on the couch in sweatpants and cry. I don’t want to go back to my old cycles of restricting and purging, but my feelings about food are so complicated that it’s hard for me to do things any other way. And I know my family would rather see me healthy than thin, but, having always been thin, it’s impossible to feel OK about being healthy.

I think it’s time for a pair of really, really good shoes.