Jeans, Today and Tomorrow: It’s good to be an Adult.

There was a careful algorithm, in sixth, seventh and eighth grade, to choose my clothes for the following day. Oh, the mental gymnastics prompted by the peer pressure of the most awkward years of one’s life.

I especially remember needing to space out the calendar for my favorite jeans. I wore them every Monday, so I could work them into the week three times without two days back to back. Because, and maybe this was only true in my middle school, and maybe even then only in my 13-year-old paranoia, there could be nothing more embarrassing than someone noticing I was wearing the same pants I wore yesterday.

Oh, the implications of wearing the same pants two days in a row. Clearly, even worse than no sense of fashion cycles, you have no sense of cleanliness since you wore clothes two days in a row without washing them in between.

Should I be so bold to wear the jeans two days in a row – or worse, to have no choice but to wear them two days in a row – I had my answer at the ready: “Yeah, but it’s okay. My mom washed them last night.”

Or better yet, “Oh – I mean, I washed them last night.” Because I am thirteen and I’m responsible and need absolutely nothing from my parents. They don’t care when I wash my clothes because they’re my clothes and this is my life, of course.

It’s good to be an adult. That’s what I say. There are certain things to celebrate.

Today, I celebrate the freedom to say, I love this outfit so much, I’m wearing it again today.

And I didn’t wash it last night.
Probably won’t wash it tonight, either.
Probably won’t wash it until it seems to be the necessary next step, and then only when the laundry baskets are emptied of folded laundry so I can start the whole blessed cycle again.

Because I’m an adult. (Now, if only someone would do my laundry.)