A lot of my pants don’t fit — like, at all.
There have been multiple occasions where my unmentionables have almost made their Commonwealth Avenue debut. I have to strategically and casually pull my pants up — in a chill way. I don’t think anyone can tell that my favorite jeans don’t fit quite right anymore. Or at least, I hope no one knows me as the girl with the crazy pants.
Last year I lost a pair of my favorite jeans because I wore them too much. There were major rips that threatened to turn the jeans into jorts. When I came back to Boston University after my first year, I knew that I could never wear them again.
Neatly folded, those jeans sat in my closet until Thanksgiving break. I hoped that I would somehow learn how to fix denim, so I could make those jeans like new. Despite that hope, sewing machines never really spoke to me.
I actually have a lot of old pants in my closet. Things that got too small, things that are too big and some things that I tried on, but I hated.
For some reason, I have a really hard time letting go of old pants.
I even have a skirt — really a sad chunk of plaid fabric — from my middle school production of “Newsies.” I fantasized about turning it into a miniskirt or maybe a matching set — something that would keep the memory of that experience with me forever. Not that miniskirts and matching sets are “forever.”
Maybe I just have a pants problem.
This, of course, like most things, is true for more than just pants. I have a shoebox filled with every letter or card I’ve ever received, I still have the charging block from when my phone wouldn’t charge with a wire and I still have a shirt from every production I’ve been a part of sitting somewhere in my basement.
I also have a really hard time saying no to people, cutting people who are bad for me out of my life and walking away from people I straight up don’t like.
In other words, I have a hard time letting go of things. It is indeed detrimental to my closet and personal life.
Okay, now that that’s out of the way.
I don’t think that I should be throwing everything I own into a landfill. Those notes still get me through tougher times. It’s nice to have a charging block in case of an emergency. The memories that I associate with people, things and places are here to stay.
But I do think that the old pants have to go.
Because I really shouldn’t be on Comm. Ave, tugging my jeans up and praying no one sees me. Or I should at least buy a belt.
There’s a lot of stuff that doesn’t fit me anymore. I can’t push through math classes, I am getting sick of my curtain bangs and I am tired of hanging out with people that I frankly don’t enjoy being around. But still, like my pants, I hang onto the fact that maybe, just maybe, they will fit again. Maybe one day I’ll turn out to be a sneaky math genius, or my curtain bangs will magically pop off or the people I used to feel a connection with will be able to connect with me like they once did.
Goodbyes are tough, especially when you never thought you’d be saying bye in the first place. I am scared, in part, that when I get rid of these things that mattered so much to me in the past, the past will become a complete unknown.
Old pants, crappy friends, annoying classes — letting go of these things doesn’t erase the fact that they happened in the first place. It doesn’t take away the fact that you wore those pants out.
We are all a product of what we have experienced. Not having the things that came along for the ride with you anymore is okay. In fact, it makes the journey all the more brilliant because it shows just how much you’ve changed along the way.
It sucks saying goodbye to your favorite pair of jeans. It sucks saying bye to someone you used to love. But at the end of the day, it’s not a fit — and that’s okay.
