Name: Tess
Home: St. Louis
My Old Shirt
I haven't brought all my winter clothes up from the basement yet, so when it got cold this weekend I grabbed my denim shirt out of my closet. I am fond of it--fraying cuffs and all--because it has seen so much of my history.
My mom got the shirt for me from The Gap when I was in 10th grade, and it has seen me go from sweet-sixteen-and-never-been-kissed all the way through suburban mother of one. I took it to Erie, PA the summer I went to Governor's School for the Arts, where I met Tom (who gave me my first kiss a week later). I packed it when I went to college, and then when I went to England for grad school. One of the oldest pieces in my wardrobe, it moved with me to North Carolina, and then Philadelphia, and then St. Louis. (It is, however, predated by the dress I made in 8th-grade sewing class, which I can't bear to get rid of because I put so much work into it--I'll probably take that one to the nursing home with me.)
Of course, I could always buy a new denim shirt--one that I might wear more than once every few years--but now I have a sentimental attachment to this one. I wouldn't want to be a teenager again, but sometimes it's nice to remember my teenage self.
posted by Tess | 2:12 PM
2 Comments:
heh.
i think i remember that shirt... and the gap-blue eyes it inspired (remember Sivle and the dyslexic aliens?)
been thinking about high school, too, since my mom is acting like a tittery teenager and i'm trying to figure out what part of it is pissing me off... (besides all of it, i mean...) la.
still not quite able to fit into my high school clothes (that'll be another year at the gym, at this rate) but i still have many in my "cloth relics" cardboard box... :)
btw-- the beautiful blue print socks you gave me for christmas (11th grade?) have big holes in them. am i allowed to throw them away? (i do wear them, whenever i can find them as a pair. they are my most-often- separated pair of socks... i think becaues i can never decide if they belong in the whites or the darks, so one goes in each...)
oh, and they hage no elastic left. but i love them.
:>
me
As much as I can't get rid of attachments to people or thoughts that I have, I have little problem getting rid of physical things. Once a full season has gone by and I see the same shirt get packed and unpacked, unworn, I toss it (or donate it depending on its state).
Clutter in my own space annoys me. So when I want to toss something sentimental I always think: well, if it was worth remembering, it's in my head. And not in my FRICKIN drawer!
:D
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