jeans

I suppose there are some people who, when they shop for jeans, find the perfect pair immediately. Most of us thread our way to the fitting room and upon struggling into our first selection are vexed with what the mirror shows us. We choose again and again until we feel as comfortable as our imperfections allow.

Sometimes, the life you live is not the one you would have chosen. If lucky, you get a second chance. Sometimes a third. Armed with wisdom pocketed where you walked, your next self-iteration is true and satisfying.

Along all your ways, both misdirected and on track, you may have acquired friends and maybe a partner. Discarding them when you change course is a mistake. They are not disposables. Your time on earth from birth to death is already a skimpy edition without your cutting it down any further.

You can sometimes tailor or patch your favorite jeans to accommodate the changing shape of you, knowing that you’ll never find another pair like that.

Even when a pair of jeans is beyond any useful renovation (either because they are so broken, worn and stained or because you yourself have changed so drastically), you ought not to throw them away. Didn’t you say you loved them? Didn’t they bring out the best in you? Aren’t their scars your doing? Frayed and threadbare where you strained and stressed them?

We have a pile of them. They will make a fine quilt. Edged with a border of silk ties from a lengthy but profitable mistake and backed with the black serge of an earlier dead end, they will guide our dreams back to the best times we’ve had, and keep us warm in the good years to come.