If The Sweatshirt Fits

When my kids aren’t looking, I wear their clothing. Well, sometimes they aren’t looking. I think it is supposed to be the other way around. When you are 12 and 14, and girls, you go into your mom’s closet and borrow the things that make sense to borrow. Small things with appropriate necklines. I borrow small things with appropriate necklines, I’m afraid, yes I do. It is not for any reason other than that they have some garments that I don’t have, and why buy them for me, when I have already bought them for them.

It should be noted that I do not borrow fashion items, anything recognizably current amongst the adolescent set. I do not wear the clothing that you would see in the middle school hallway. Fortunately, for my daughters. I could, and would, except for them. I just borrow athletic gear. Not one to really buy my own athletic gear on a regular schedule, though I am athletic on a regular schedule, I was utterly thrilled when it occurred to me that I could vary my sweatshirts and Ts. I have a tiny collection. I can’t buy sweats, I don’t know why. Or short-sleeved shirts. It seems silly. I only buy  real clothes.

So, when I have rotated my two Ts and two sweatshirts, I hit the racks.

“Mommy, is that my shirt?” they say, getting into the car after school.

“Yes, I love it. Can I borrow it?”

“Yes, you can,” they say, slowly, reminding me that it is already on my body. 

I am careful to select from only the items that my kids do not really care about. I do not pick anything new, or newish. I limit my choice to clothes mashed in the back of their closets. Yesterday, I discovered a fleece pullover with a one-third zipper. Powder blue, in a dusty sort of way. Subtle. Fab. Just fab. My older daughter had outgrown it and given it to her sister. I hadn’t seen it on either of them in months. I wore it all day, really enjoying the thinness of the fabric, which they use now, the designers. They make thin material that keeps you as warm as thick material. This was a technological marvel, this powder blue shirt. I felt very scientific in it. I felt like a lab animal. When I went outside in it, I noticed the other lab animals, in green and blue, with zippers, without. Who is warmer, I wondered. Does the zipper create a draft?

Today, I did not borrow anything. I put on my own fleece shirt. It is not thin, and it has buttons. It is also not blue. It does not keep me as warm as the blue one. There is nothing technological about it. It is a Dark Ages sweatshirt. If I remember, there was an orange one that was purchased with the blue one. I look forward to trying it on tomorrow.