After watching Worn Stories on Netflix I thought I'd raid my closet for a few garments I've saved over the years and talk about why I've kept them. Weirdly, I didn't pay for any of them.
This field jacket was the first issued to me by the Air Force when I enlisted. I've kept it because of all the uniforms I wore during my service, this was the one that meant the most to me for a bunch of reasons, including surviving basic training. I definitely earned this jacket.
This is a pair of scrubs given to me by a trauma surgeon from a civilian hospital where I worked. He had just learned that I'd turned in my notice and told me I should really consider going to medical school (he even offered to help me get in a great one) and told me to wear the scrubs so I'd know what it was like to dress like a working surgeon (the scrubs I wore for that job were blue.) I kept them because I often wondered what my life would have been like if I'd stayed in the medical field, I think. Also they're insanely comfortable to wear as pajamas in winter. :)
This is one of the oldest garments I own, the t-shirt I wore when I was seventeen and showed my art at a high school exbition. All the kids who had art in that show were expected to buy one and wear it that day. I was too poor to do that, so I just wore a plain black t-shirt that I borrowed from my brother and hoped no one would notice. I was terribly embarrassed about that, too, as the shirt was way too big on me. Anyway, my art teacher found out from one of my classmates that I was the only student who didn't have the money for a shirt, and she bought it for me. I was even more embarrased when she gave it to me, but it was one of the kindest things any adult did for me in my teens.
I only wore the shirt once for the exhbition (it became sacred after that.) I've kept it all these years because it was a gift from a teacher who ultimately changed my life and helped me believe in myself. 45 years later I haven't forgotten her.
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