Dear Grey Esprit Sweatshirt with the Tiny Multi-Colored Flecks,
God, you were perfect. The fact that my grandmother picked you out was an astonishment of which I have never seen the equal. How could she have chosen something so cool? How in heck did she decide to spend the money on you when she probably was thinking she could something even better at BJ’s Wholesale Warehouse for a fraction of the cost?
It was the fact that you were Esprit, of course. But it was also the simplicity of the embroidered logo. It was the delicate flecks of color on a perfectly heather grey background (think aged cedar shingles on a beach house). It was the fit – slightly baggy, not too baggy. You hit right at the hip. Is there anything better than a perfect grey sweatshirt and a pair of faded jeans (dungarees, my grandma would have said)? Haha, I know what you would say, Grey Esprit.
I saw a picture of you the other day, at my mom’s house. And I realized that in that picture I don’t look as ridiculous as I do in my memory. I’m old enough to see what my parents probably saw in me, why they continued to take pictures of me when my mouth was full of braces and my hair was permed like that. But anyway, I realized as I held the picture in my hand that the jeans I had on were surprisingly similar to the ones I wore in the photo, and that I had been searching for that look for a long long time, and missing a perfect grey sweatshirt since I was 15 years old. And there I was, a middle-aged mother, standing in my mother’s house, remembering what I have lost: a sweatshirt, a chair placed for me by the window so that the light was better for the picture, a place in time where my growth had to be documented, gifts from my grandmother, those braces, that perm.
Missing you a lot today,
-e.