A New Life for Some Old Jeans
In a tall white dresser tucked into a corner of my bedroom lays a pair of denim shorts. They are Levi’s, medium blue with a haphazardly folded hem. The waist has been stretched from wear and the size tags long since ripped out. They look rather raggedy and ordinary, but what makes them special is that they started their life as a pair of dark wash boot-cut jeans that I fell in love with as a teenager in a J. C. Penny dressing room.
I wore those jeans everywhere- to school, on dates, camping in the summer and playing in the snow in the winter. I wore them with heels to family parties, with flats to school, and with sneakers on the weekend. I wore them when I took the SAT’s. I even wore them while I toured Montclair State University for the very first time. They were there to witness periods of heartbreak and moments of happiness. And though I would rather forget, they were there during extreme embarrassments too.
When I gained weight in college, they lovingly stretched to fit my hips and fought valiantly against the impending “chub rub.” And one day, when my Levi’s Jeans could simply no longer take the stress, I heard them rip. I heard it before I saw it, and I almost cried when I looked down and saw a three-inch gash along my inner thigh.
For days I contemplated throwing out my favorite jeans. I sewed the hole up, used patches to try to remedy the situation, but nothing really worked. I realized I might never be able to wear them as jeans again, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t wear them as something else. That’s when I took a pair of scissors to the legs and hemmed the bottom edge to cover the rip - and they’ve been like that ever since.
They aren’t the same as they used to be, but neither am I. And maybe that’s a good thing. I figure that if I had changed throughout the last seven years, they had to change too. Just like me, their shape their changed, their personality changed, and maybe even their attitude changed (who knows?) It doesn’t mean the history was lost, it simply means that their future is different.
