Over the last couple of years, I have maintained my weight, sometimes drifting upward before I get my head back on straight and put in the effort. While I have accepted that my weight battles will always be with me, I have also imagined a line I’d cross from active weight loss into maintenance. I know better than to believe, as I used to, that crossing that line will magically solve all of my issues, but it struck me just today how much change has still been going on over the last couple of years, despite more slight changes in weight.

I’m near my low weight, again, but I’ve been near it or at it countless times in the last two years. It’s also the time of year that I change out my warm weather clothes for cool weather, so I decided to start the process last week, pulling out jeans and long pants. Earlier today, I decided to move some clothes into my closet, and ended up challenging myself to pull out clothes that I haven’t worn in the last couple of years.

I used to do this all the time, but haven’t, recently. My reasons, before, were because I was actively losing weight and going down in clothing size, so I pulled out the things that had become too large. I’ve donated a few bags of clothing here and there in the last couple of years, but nothing on the level of where I once was.

When I lost weight years ago and then started to regain, I kept some of my clothing with the hope that I’d get a handle on my weight gains and get back into them. As I increased in size, I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of the clothing. It felt like giving up hope. I squirreled away clothing and didn’t look at it, again; it was just too painful for me to do. At one point, not long after I had attempted weight loss again to limited success, I got mad enough to part with a lot of that clothing. Donating them felt final — as if I was closing the door on the possibility that I would ever regain the body I’d briefly had after losing over a hundred pounds.

A small thought entered my mind as I was pulling out last year’s jeans for this year. I had kept my favorite pair from that effort back then, and I wore them last fall and winter. I wore them again just last week and realized how stupidly large they were getting. I’ve washed them, and they’ll be donated. They, and an out-of-style jean vest, are the last remnants of that large effort, but they’re too big, now, rather than being too small. Donating them, as well as the other clothes I’ve been holding onto for absolutely no reason except for insecurity, will no longer be an act of giving up hope. This time, it’ll be an act of never allowing myself to fit back into larger clothing.

Hanging on to things that no longer serve me, whether yesterday’s too-small clothes or today’s too-large ones, is one of the ways I recognize my changing body, but I’ve come to the stark realization that keeping the things that are too large allows me a cushion. I don’t want that. The scale may read nearly the same weight as it did two years ago, but my body and my mind have done a lot of changing since then, and there’s no longer any reason to hang on to such things.

I’m under construction. I’ve been renovating my mind and body without ever really paying much attention, especially during a pandemic that has allowed me to stay in comfy clothing for months on end, with very few exceptions. It’s no longer about an imaginary line that I’ll cross and then move into maintenance; in many ways, I’m already there. I’m still changing. Instead of looking back with dread, I’m looking forward with hope.