For The Love Of Leggings

I’m addicted to leggings. I would wear them everyday if I had enough pairs. Actually, I pretty much wear them 6 out of 7 days. I don’t wear them in the Lindsay Lohan style of leggings and just a t-shirt as seen below:

Although, I wish I could wear that outfit.

But, I usually pair them with a skirt or dress, boots or ballerina flats. I love them so much that I actually ventured into the land of jeggings. I’ve worn them a couple of times, but they are really hard to pull off when you are not someone with toothpick legs.

Where am I going with this? I was off getting coffee this morning in my leggings and plaid dress with ballerina flats and I passed by a rather large, older woman in stretch pants and a t-shirt and I looked at her and I looked at my outfit and I thought, really, what’s the difference? Why are her pants stretch pants and mine leggings? In 20 years will I still be wearing my leggings but calling them stretch pants?

One of the main reasons I love them so much is the comfort factor. It’s like wearing pajamas. I can move easily. There are no restrictions. There is less fretting over what to wear when I can always just throw on some leggings with a dress or skirt and a t-shirt. They offer a simplicity to my life, which recently, has become complicated and a bit overwhelming.

And now they make them in so many different styles and colors, it’s opened up a whole new world of fashion for me.

But, as I become an older woman and my hips and waist expand - as they inevitably will – will I become one of those women I see lumbering through downtown in her stretch pants and over-sized t-shirt still happily discussing the comfort and ease my now stretch pants provide? Will my love of my leggings make this transition happen with an ease I am uncomfortable with since I am not ever dealing with the awful realization of struggling to put on a pair of jeans that no longer button?

I love my leggings, as I’ve said. I like how they look. I like how the feel. I like how easy they are.

I’ve never been a fashionista and have always found it frustrating trying to keep up with trends. But, eventually, these leggings will become so outdated that I will look the fool wandering around in them. But, what if there’s no going back? What if this is my uniform for life? What if one day I wake up and my leggings are now stretch pants?

This concerns me.