I hear from a lot of people these days who are avoiding, with age and with weight gain and with generally changing body shapes, that they’re not comfortable wearing shorts.
The timing isn’t great. Things are getting warmer, and it was hot this year in May.
If you don’t want to wear shorts, that’s fine, but not wearing shorts because you don’t feel good in them because you’re embarrassed about what your legs look like, that’s not so fine.
I’ve written about this before. See Sam’s Thoughts about Shorts.
This tweet below hit home with me.
I have big legs, and I remember even when I was in high school and thin, being self-conscious about that. The magazine reporting on women’s weights and who should and shouldn’t wear shorts didn’t help.
Last week I read another piece about shorts which I liked, Are you anti-short?: “I find myself wondering if people in the anti-shorts camp just feel weird about their legs, which would be perfectly reasonable considering the many, many ways we’ve been socialized to feel bad about our bodies. I remember my dad, who was tall and thin, complaining about the way his “knobby knees” looked in shorts and Fran Lebowitz famously said, “men in shorts are disgusting.” It’s hard to forget this stuff.”
And then there’s my snazzy knee scars. Check them out!
I’m pretty happy with my new knees, scars, and all. I’m less happy that my legs aren’t as muscular as they used to be, but I’m working on that.
But I’m still determined to wear shorts in the summer.
