A Durable Sweater Set

 

A Durable Sweater Set  by Nancy Schatz Alton

The girl with the blue sweater grades papers. She looks more put together than me. A girl with a plan, a purpose, a sweater set, her life just beginning.

I’ve always thought if I had the right clothes, everything else I wanted would arrive on time. If my colors complement each other and my shoes are cool, I’d be set.

I’m set by age and knowing, which leads to realize I know not too much. And I can’t teach anyone else anything.

But I can put on some lipstick. Stitch together my morning by sliding on my dependable shoes, the stylish ones purchased at a garage sale ten years ago.

Lately I’ve been telling myself I have all the clothes I need. The old shoes, the bright sweaters, the black pants with enough give to give my almost-50-year-old hips room to breathe.

I am breathing into my day, scraping enough lipstick from the almost empty tube to decorate my lips. Wearing my bright purple sweater and watching the girl with the sweater set.

Even as I think how nice it would be to have known then what I know now, that’s not the way the world works. And a durable sweater set really does help with those eventual arrivals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

1 thought on “A Durable Sweater Set

  1. I need new jeans, ones that have enough give in them, and can last another 10 years. It is interesting how, as we get older, our expectations of ourselves and how we present to the outside world change. Less of the “more” and “different” and the familiar, or maybe easy, maybe “dependable” is the correct word, is what we gravitate towards. Left alone we might stagnate in our presentation to the world. That is where our kids come in. They prod us, SHOULD prod us, a bit out of our comfort zone, to try new things again, to hold on to what works, but also accept, to take in those new things that fit in.

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