Girls in Skirts Holding Hands

Day 20 in my @BestSelfCo Edison Deck Challenge pulled a “life” card that asked, “What is the first thing you remember buying with your own money?”

I am sure there were little things that I bought with my own money, as I was a championship babysitter with a penchant for saving. It seemed sacrilegious to take the money out of my piggy bank (the type of bank with a rubber stopper in the bottom) but there came a time when no more would fit in the coin slot without taking something out. The first memorable purchase was an ensemble that wasn’t the obligatory back to school shopping, or the additional wardrobe items that came via Christmas, birthday, or Easter. It wasn’t purchased on sale, and it was more money than I could remember my mother spending on me because clothes were for practical purposes.

The ensemble came from a posh boutique for teens and consisted of brushed maroon bell bottoms with a sweater to match. The sweater was hunter green with a fair isle motif of girls in skirts holding hands on a background of alternating horizontal stripes of rose pink, ivory, and maroon. It was unique and expensive. I topped it off with platform shoes styled like penny loafers, but in the mod style of the day. I didn’t splurge on the shoes, settling for manmade materials manufactured to look like aged leather. The soles of the platform shoes were affixed with glue, with molded plastic heels, and embossed stitching to simulate higher quality footwear. It didn’t take long for the soles to detach from the “manmade materials”, and there was no amount of rubber cement or super glue that would make the soles reattach. Lesson learned: Don’t skimp on quality when it comes to footwear.

As for the rest of the ensemble, I hadn’t stopped growing and the pants became capris before that cut ever came back in style and as puberty continued, the hip hugger button no longer held. The sweater was a different story. It was one of the wardrobe pieces that was well made and styled to last. It became my favorite. Years later, in high school, I was employed part-time as a waitress at a steak house and my home life was stressful and had become untenable in my mind. I packed my blue vinyl suitcase that I had since elementary school, the same one that I would pack my pajamas in to go to the lake cabin or to visit the grandparents or a rare slumber party. It’s also the suitcase that I packed in second grade to run away from home and got as far as the other side of the vacant field next to our house before I changed my mind. Upon my return, my mother asked if I was staying for dinner and if I needed help unpacking. Packing that suitcase again at seventeen was done with more thought and intention, all my favorite clothes, including the forest green signature sweater.

I have long forgotten who I was planning to stay with and what my exit plan was, as my plans were interrupted when I found at the end of my shift as I approached my car, that something wasn’t right. With safety glass glistening in the parking lot I grappled with the fact that my car had been broken into and the blue vinyl suitcase with all my favorite clothes was gone. I don’t remember what else was taken, but I felt like I had just been gut punched. I now only had the 100% polyester work uniform (a pants and tunic ensemble in an unappealing combination of brown, orange, and yellow) to my name. I drove home at midnight, not sure how to explain my missing clothes. Truthfully, nobody noticed that I was left to wear hand me downs and the items in my closet that had been pushed aside as my least favorite.

The next day, I left early to drive to my waitressing shift and decided to drive through the residential neighborhoods near the restaurant. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted my clothing hanging on an outdoor clothesline, held in place with clothes pins, and flapping in the late summer breeze. I parked my car and walked up the porch steps where only a screen door stood between me and the mystery. I rang the door bell and watched as a young woman, five or so years older than me with two young toddlers grasping at her ankles made her way to the door. When I explained what had happened, she said that her husband had found the suitcase with clothing strewn across their front lawn early that morning. She had washed what they salvaged. She graciously returned them to me, neatly folded along with the suitcase, but there was no trace of the sweater. I asked if there was anything else and she said, no, but I might check with the other neighbors. So much for signature fashion. I found it curious that everything was recovered except for that one single sweater. Lesson learned: Quality always lives on, somewhere.

I delayed leaving home until the day after my high school graduation. My car was packed and this time, I refused to leave my belongings unattended until I reached my destination, a six-hour drive away. I never looked back and to this day it is still hard for me to leave a suitcase in a car unattended. It took a long time for me to pack things I liked and cared about for any trip, opting to take only things that I had no attachment to or sentiment for. That didn’t do a lot for my fashion profile, but it did help me develop a healthy dose of self-esteem. I had an aunt that used to say, “You can wear anything, if you tilt up your chin and walk like you’re hot shit.” Lesson learned. That advice continues to ring true and to serve me far beyond the useful life of a sweater with fair isle girls in skirts holding hands.