I saw recently that low-rise jeans are coming back. My immediate reaction was, “Sweet Jesus, NO.” Then something wonderful happened. I realized I’m old enough (and Mom enough) to not care about trends anymore. I literally just bought a pair of jeans online named The Mom (Revtown). They come all the way up to my natural waist, and I probably won’t buy any more jeans for a long time. When skinny jeans were becoming popular, I raged against them, mainly because I, like other female rowers, couldn’t find any that fit me because my legs were too big. Supposedly, normal legs fit into those pants, but I found them to be so intolerably tight, I felt like I was being strangled around the legs by the end of the day. It was the worst. But as I am not a seamstress, I can only wear the pants that are at stores. No wonder my closet was full of sweats and yoga pants! I doubt I’m alone in this.

I’ve long had an indifference to trends. I suppose I’ve been aware of them, the way one is aware of a bully’s mood. I stay away when possible but act accordingly if I’m face to face with conflict or embarrassment. But feeling too old to need to care about trends isn’t overwhelmingly positive. I definitely feel immense relief that I don’t have to wear super uncomfortable pants and worry about my butt crack showing like I (and all of my peers) did in late-high school and college, roughly 2000-2006. Now the bully has no power over me, but the bully pities me because of my irrelevance. That feels bad, even though it’s freeing at the same time.

But low-rise jeans will never re-enter my closet, and I’m PSYCHED about it. I remember when I was in high school and a woman who worked there (I don’t know how old she was, but she was a mom and a definite adult) wore the same Silver jeans that the cool girls in 10th grade wore, and it looked weird. That has always stuck with me. It wasn’t fair, and I’m not sure WHY it looked weird, but a mom-age lady was wearing cool-kid pants, and I didn’t even wear cool-kid pants.

As is generally the case with everything I write about, the point is to be non-judgmental here. That lady at my high school seemed happy, and who am I to judge? Wear the pants you want to wear. Don’t wear the pants you don’t want to wear. Part of me is a little bummed that some Gen Z cool kids have decided to bully Millennial women about their choice of pants and hair styles and emojis. Maybe the emoji thing is over now. Who even knows. The point is, if you choose not to care what Instagram trolls and the fashion industry think of your style choices, they have no power. They, the unknown, faceless bully looking at my Insta feed, might pity me and my mom life. I can picture them laughing as they say, “Oh that’s just sad!” (The people I invent in my head can be really mean.) But if I really choose not to care and focus on my own people, then their pity doesn’t matter. I’m going to wear what I wear and like what I like. It’s easy to be critical, to put up walls and project judgment. But it’s not that hard to live and let live either.