The Journey Shirt

This shirt has a story to tell.  I'm not going to tell you the story.  The story isn't mine to tell, however, this shirt has a lot to say.  You can't see how weathered and faded it is in the picture, not easily.  You can't see the way it's been bleached by the sun.  You can't see the holes in the sleeve from somewhere before it landed in my hands.  You can't see any of the personality.  To you it may just seem like some shirt.  It might seem like nothing more than some material item.  To me, it's the perfect grunge shirt, and it's my favorite shirt, my prized possession.  It means more to me than my dance costumes, and if you know me, you know that's saying a lot. Okay, maybe I will get into the story a little.  This shirt was a "nice" shirt at one point in time.  It was one of those "find a job" kind of garments.  The previous owner had good intentions, but that all went awry.  You see, he got into a car accident.  One thing led to another and the shirt was left abandoned on the side of the road, forgotten and alone.

One would imagine that these things get cleaned up now and again.  The rain would wash it away.  Somehow someone would clear the litter.  Anything could have happened to clear this shirt off the street, but nothing did.  That shirt remained, lost and abandoned for quite some time.  The sun bleached it in an awkward way, but it was still hoping to be used.  It wanted to fulfill it's purpose.  It wanted nothing more than to be loved, but it was abandoned in a city of broken dreams.  It kind of fits the city.  A lot of people come here as a part of the military, but then they find themselves out of the Army with nowhere to go.  They end up stuck here, not sure how to move forward, but definitely needing too.  Many of them are former Army wives I know.  The military pays to move them down here, but doesn't pay to move them home.  They're abandoned like that old forgotten shirt on the side of the road.  I kind of felt that way myself sometimes.  How could I not?  I was just abandoned here myself with three kids and no way out.  In a lot of ways I still feel stuck and abandoned.

Eventually it found that all was not lost.  It was ironically picked up by someone who knew the original owner.  That shirt eventually made it back to him, becoming one of his favorite things.  It had been through rough times and so had he.  He reclaimed that shirt and loved it all the more for everything it had been through.  Battered and abused, it shared a lot in common with him.  It was fitting that he should have it back.

Somewhere around April that same person found me.  He and I had spent time together before.  He hung out at our house all the time.  He and his room mates were friends of the household so we spent a lot of time together.  We've been really close since then.  I've been around for crazy, drunken moments, like Keith-stone Light Man telling him he could fly to try and make him jump off the balcony.  He's since gone sober and has been sober for a whole month.  I'm really proud of him!  Sometime after all this craziness happened he took a shirt out of a bag he'd had with him for quite some time.  I guess he'd had it when he was homeless.  He told me that this was his favorite shirt, then asked me if I knew why.  He'd told me the story about the car accident before.  He'd mentioned that someone actually found the shirt later, but the whole thing was kind of glazed over.  He said this shirt was the shirt from that crazy night.  It was his favorite thing, and he wanted me to have it.  He was entrusting this incredibly important item in his life to my care.

Normally I would have found such a gift kind of appalling.  Why would you give a beaten up shirt that had effectively been trash to someone you cared about?  I don't do the whole dumpster diving thing.  We have a blanket known as "the trash blanket" that was pulled from the trash, but I can't really stand it.  The idea of things being plucked from the trash or off the street kind of bothers me.  I can't even explain what it is that gets to me.  It just does.  That's just how I am.  That's just who I am.  If people can't understand that, well, maybe they just don't get me.

Somehow this shirt was different.  Giving it a new life as my own garment kind of gave me hope in my own life.  If I could give this shirt a second chance, maybe someone could give me a second chance too.  It's not exactly like I advertise this across the web, but I'm thirty.  This is a big year for me.  I feel like my life is going nowhere and I haven't accomplished anything.  I had these grand goals for my life and, well, I haven't accomplished anything.  I was a dreamer.  I wanted so much out of life, but I'm getting older.  I'm certainly feeling older.  I feel about as beaten up as that shirt, faded by the sun and buttons missing.  That shirt has become some kind of symbol of my life.  It's the one way I can express what's truly going on in my mind, how I truly feel, to the whole world without having to say a thing.  It speaks so much, even if no one understands it but me.  It's gone from being some creepy piece of clothing that was picked up off the street to my own favorite garment, something that goes with me almost everywhere I go!

It may just be a shirt, but it's a shirt with a story.  It really makes you stop and think, doesn't everything have a story?  Every thing that's cast off by the side of the road has it's own story.  Every abandoned item in lost and found came from somewhere.  Perhaps that person is missing it.  Maybe that item saved their life one time.  It just shocked me how incredibly much is just passed over, not cared about, and ignored, simply because people don't know the story.  Then again, isn't that how I feel sometimes?  Perhaps more people would stop to see the value in everything I am if they'd only stop and ask about the story.  That shirt and I certainly have a lot in common.  It's not surprising that's my favorite article of clothing to wear.  Of course...I have to add this...it's ten times more important because the man who gave it to me is very dear to my own heart.  I love you, and thank you for giving this shirt another chance at life, and for giving me a chance in your life too.  I don't know what I'd do without you.