So I finally put on the freshman 15 after 10 years of putting it off.

For months, I've been blaming a slew of dry cleaners for my ever-tightening clothes.

But when a button went flying across the room one day, I had to face facts.

Including the fact that others had noticed the change.

After a co-worker asked me if I was gaining weight "on purpose," I stepped on a scale to confirm my fears that this was more than a five-pound fluctuation.

While the number was shocking to me, something else troubled me more.

I had always been the ultra-skinny one in the group. The beanpole. The stick person. That was my deal.

Not that I was trying.

I don't eat vegetables. I love Dr Pepper — full strength, of course. And I loathe the time-honored female tradition of splitting dessert. As a child, I asked why we didn't eat dessert after breakfast.

For the sake of these poor eating habits, for which I never seemed to pay, I was willing to bear the snide remarks of my friends. I wore them like a badge of courage. No "rabbit food" for me.

Now, the day of reckoning had arrived.

Actually, it was OK at first. I guess.

I heard a lot of "You look so much better" and "You still look pretty thin" and "You're just filling out."

(Are you there, God? It's me — now pleasantly plump.)

Even my doctor was in favor of the added pounds, noting that I had become more height-weight proportionate.

All of this helped to ease my anxiety about the shift.

Then I went shopping for new jeans.

There was a time I could buy clothes right off the rack without trying them on. My biggest problem was not being able to afford everything that fit.

Apparently, this was no longer an issue.

As I emerged empty-handed from store after store, I began to droop with that telltale look of dressing room post-traumatic stress disorder.

At the last place, I picked up a pair of jeans in my new size and saw that they were merchandised under the heading "Confident and curvy."

I put them back and dashed for the car, where I engaged in a private rant.

I told this story to my friend Misty, who surmised the problem immediately. You were shopping in stores for teenagers, she told me, puzzled that I didn't seem to know how old I was.

She took me to shop in the misses department, where things did indeed fit better, and where the service was greatly improved.

In fact, the salesperson treated me respectfully. Like an adult. Which made me realize that I hadn't just been running from my weight, but also from my age.

I had always been the youngest one in the group.

But right there in the mirror, I stared at myself in big-girl jeans and saw the difference between young and childish.

My weight had evicted me from my safe but false world, where people patted me on the head and referred to me as "cute" and "precocious." And where they left me to warm the bench and clean up after everyone else had gone home.

I didn't see myself as grown-up, and this blind spot was exactly where some people liked to drive in order to take advantage of me.

No more.

I bought those big-girl jeans and threw out the old ones with the bad memories.

And I've come around to the idea of ordering water with lemon, sharing dessert and expecting the normal amount of respect due a grown woman.

I can't say it has been the easiest adjustment, but what I've come to understand far outweighs the extra pounds.