As I write this I am wearing a tattered gray shirt that reads "21st Century Girl" across the front. It has paint from each of the houses we have owned, deck stain drops and now holes and yet I still wear it. Relegated to pajamas since it is not fit for...well anything, I just can't throw it away. Why?
Why indeed. I love to clean house. Getting rid of things, making piles for Salvation Army or trash, re- purposing old cloth for rags, it makes me feel productive. But this shirt has escaped every time.
Is it because I bought it when I was teaching right after college (1997), or because when I bought it I was staying with my grandmother who has since passed away? Maybe it is because it was what I would throw on for house cleaning Sunday when I lived with friends on the beach or because I wore it the first time Frank brought me to Lake Buell? Perhaps it is because I wore it to keep the mosquitos off while Kayla and I jumped on the trampoline endlessly or because I stretched it during both pregnancies.
I know that even though there is "cappuccino" paint and deck stain from the house in Mashpee, or all three paints from the girls' bedrooms here in Deerfield, those are not the reasons. The Easter egg dye on the left sleeve is not the reason either.
It is the tears that the shirt has soaked up that make it hard to part with. Tears of a Grandmother, father in law and nephew passing, tears of 9/11 and miscarriages, tears of exhaustion with two children under 2 and tears of happiness at birthdays, baptisms, Christmas and weddings. Tears of selling the home where your children were born, of a friend struggling through chemo and radiation, of Alzheimer's, of earthquakes and tsunamis and children growing up.
But what to do with this shirt? It is beyond repair. Saving it is pointless, I am the only one for whom this shirt brings back these memories. Perhaps if it survives one more wash, an answer will come to me.
Why indeed. I love to clean house. Getting rid of things, making piles for Salvation Army or trash, re- purposing old cloth for rags, it makes me feel productive. But this shirt has escaped every time.
Is it because I bought it when I was teaching right after college (1997), or because when I bought it I was staying with my grandmother who has since passed away? Maybe it is because it was what I would throw on for house cleaning Sunday when I lived with friends on the beach or because I wore it the first time Frank brought me to Lake Buell? Perhaps it is because I wore it to keep the mosquitos off while Kayla and I jumped on the trampoline endlessly or because I stretched it during both pregnancies.
I know that even though there is "cappuccino" paint and deck stain from the house in Mashpee, or all three paints from the girls' bedrooms here in Deerfield, those are not the reasons. The Easter egg dye on the left sleeve is not the reason either.
It is the tears that the shirt has soaked up that make it hard to part with. Tears of a Grandmother, father in law and nephew passing, tears of 9/11 and miscarriages, tears of exhaustion with two children under 2 and tears of happiness at birthdays, baptisms, Christmas and weddings. Tears of selling the home where your children were born, of a friend struggling through chemo and radiation, of Alzheimer's, of earthquakes and tsunamis and children growing up.
But what to do with this shirt? It is beyond repair. Saving it is pointless, I am the only one for whom this shirt brings back these memories. Perhaps if it survives one more wash, an answer will come to me.
