This Old Thing

I found a shirt. It must have been under the dryer for years. A tank top with pink and brown diagonal stripes, pink lace trim and adjustable spaghetti straps. As soon as I set eyes on it, the buzzing of vague memories quickened my pulse. Powerful memories, but beyond the grasp of definition.  Just a strong and sudden sense of something important, some critical event or occasion in my biography.

It's baffling how the mind operates. How some moments implant themselves, and can remain hidden, or dormant, or just plain forgotten, until triggered. Impressions. That's the word. This tank top evoked an impression I'd long since forgotten. I recall an icy, citrus-y beverage...lemonade, perhaps, and almost certainly spiked. A pool hall. Q Billiards. A summer backyard party at the barely-livable eyesore of a house a friend was renting at the time. Humid air and cold vodka lemonade, manic conversation fueled by chemicals, and manufactured ecstasy laced with fuck-it-all impulses. Unrestrained impulses.

An ex-boyfriend, most of all. The one I loved in the way that only happens when you don't know any better than to fall, unrestrained. Reckless love. Young love. First love. Squandered love, ultimately. Wasted in the way that only happens when you don't know any better, when you take it for granted. When you don't know yourself or love yourself or understand yourself enough to appreciate the profundity, the rarity of true love. When you have no business falling in love. When you have no fear of it, either. And by you, I of course am talking about myself.

The shirt is a relic, a memento from my past. A message, its meaning unclear, perhaps incomprehensible, but important. I think, I was a different person when I wore it last. Smaller in size as well as in scope. But I am not entirely separate from that person; I still contain my smaller self. It's just been hidden under the dryer for a while.

It's not altogether unpleasant, this reminder. It holds regret, but also love. Destruction, as well as innocence. It has depth and fullness that surprise me with persistent, choking sentiments. As these feelings rose and swirled like ribbons of smoke, I washed the shirt, and folded it. It's in my closet now. To a visitor, it probably looks like just another piece of clothing.