When you find two individual garments in separate stores that could literally be cut from the same cloth, you marry them—no matter how awkwardly the hemlines relate. At least, I did.
In fact, this is something I find myself doing often now. When I find anything that fits both my body and current taste profile, I buy it. It’s a new chapter in my life: I spend no time deliberating. I don’t ask myself what purpose each piece will serve. I’ve somehow learned to trust that a function will materialize; that my attraction to each purchase alone is substantial reason to wear it, even if I can’t explain what draws me in. There’s a time for thinking and a time for doing. Although I never thought I would, my 22nd year on earth finds me warming up to the latter.
The gingham? It's great. And a coordinating set brings unparalleled satisfaction. However, I have trouble appreciating each piece separately. I like to think of this tension as more blessing than curse, which reflects another example of the new thought pattern that’s made a home in my brain. When you shop in a thrift store you understand on some level that it's a game of sacrifice. What’s on the sales floor is all that’s available. So when you find a pair of gingham pants that divide your torso perfectly at the waist and follow the lines of your lower half so naturally it’s as if you’d been traced, you buy them, even though they are capris—i.e. one half the uniform of a middle-aged mom on vacation.
We understand this as a fact of life: put up with what you dislike to enjoy the things you like. Along the way you might surprise yourself and start—against every instinct—loving capris and the unfamiliar, prickly expanse they reveal from shin to ankle. Sometimes I wonder why something tough like learning to love what you hate is worth the grief, but how can honing your skills for spotting silver lining backfire?