Every year, after the Christmas bustle and just before New Year’s Eve sneaks up, I find myself in reflection mode. Sometimes I’m flabbergasted by the speed at which the year flew; some years have me on my knees in thanks for the blessings and growth; other years, I have to dig a little to excavate the memories from that particular trip around the sun. This year, there is a heaviness. But there is also a sturdy resoluteness.

We are alive. We are figuring out hard things. We are growing, and growing really hurts a lot of the time.

The heaviness has crept into every part of me — my heart, my soul, my bones. That all makes sense to me. It tracks. The waist line and the thighs trip me up, though. It makes perfect sense that they would grow more sturdy, too, to support this part of the journey. It also makes me really frustrated and self-conscious.

I’ve tried eating better, drinking less, exercising more. The scale isn’t moving. The pants are getting tighter and tighter. Before Christmas this year, I elfed myself some new britches. (A few too many days of sitting at my work desk after lunch with my top button undone convinced me to take swift action.)

One of the slacks are red and flowy and festive, so I wore them for our Christmas celebrations and got several compliments. I replied “these are my new big girl pants, since none of my other pants fit anymore.”

I got an “oh, stop it,” a few awkward shrugs, and a couple “they’re cute” comments. I chuckled to myself, made a mental note that they’d passed the test and I’d wear them again, and I moved along.

This morning, I saw an anti-diet piece from Anne Lamott earlier today in anticipation of New Year’s resolutions. It was beautiful and honest, as her writing tends to be. This part in particular stuck with me:

“Can you put away your tight pants, that hurt. ? Wear forgiving pants! The world is too hard as it is, without letting your pants have an opinion on how you are doing.”

I remembered my big girl Christmas pants and patted myself on the back for putting away the tight pants that hurt. But I kept thinking about it throughout the day, wondering if maybe there was more to the connection.

One of the highlights of my year was a meditation retreat in Costa Rica this Spring. When I got home from a majestic week there, a few things shifted that haven’t shifted back:

1. I ended my 6-year streak of 5:30 AM weekday wakeups for early morning workouts.
2. I ended my lifelong relationship to pants with a restrictive waist band on non-work days.
3. I began scheduling sleep and rest as an equal priority to my work, family, and home requirements.

These are all healthy choices for me — choices that overrode a lifetime of programming that’s no longer serving me, and that will give me a chance to rewire accordingly in this second half of my life, provided I’m lucky enough be gifted those precious years — and they also mean that my mind, body, and soul will and should shapeshift around this softened, more spacious reality.

So while my “big girl pants” label started out as a joke, I’m hoping maybe it will become a playful reminder that I *get* to be a shapeshifter. I *choose* to take up all the space I need. I *earned* this body by *living* this magical, expansive, challenging, beautiful life. It looks different because it *is* different.

If this is how my body looks now, that’s on purpose. It’s transforming into the vehicle that will move me toward my dreams, my purpose, and my future. And I’m too damn experienced and in love with this journey to travel in anything less than the most forgiving pants.

My pants no longer have a license to drive. They don’t get a vote in how well I’m navigating. And, frankly, they don’t get so much as a millimeter of space in my head if they’re not enhancing the trip that is my life. That, my friends, is my New Year’s resolution. This is the year I proudly don my cozy, comfy, big girl pants and step fully into the juicy, expansive life waiting for me that needs me to play big. Let the closet cleanout commence.