I see a stack of short jean shorts and that same feeling comes back. Yellow dandelions blossoming on green hills. The springing of summer. That long lost feeling of looking forward to something; of changing into a young woman from a preteen. The start of a new life filled with sunshine and warm weather.
In the mid nineties, small bright tribal patchwork on jean shorts were trending. My body and mind was changing and I had new ambitions on… being a likable girl. I gravitated towards the funky colorful yellow-orange vibrant patchwork pretending that it was just a short term whim; that it wasn’t really me because I tended to think through things.
Wearing it would be like like bursting out of a timid dark place with flashing colors. There was a new season swirling around, and I’d be embracing it with a giddy smile. There’d be new adventures and new places to find. Sun in tinted hair, sliding through the streets in rollerblades. Chasing after a white puppy on a leash. Concrete school with spells of spring break. New boys, new social circles, new freedoms, new events to participate in. I would be drenched in all this dreamlike glory of newness. The air would smell like springtime in full boom, as I bloom.
Morphing into a newer body, those shorts would curve and hug around me like it was meant to be. I’d swing my hips and dance on them while being the sunny girl I always saw myself as. The world would shimmer under my feet, the trees would sway and dance with me. It was a new season, and I’d spin with the turning globe. The possibilities awaited, and the possibilities were infinite, omnipresent, and endless.
I begged to buy those shorts, and I was finally able to. Once home, I rushed to try them on. I jumped in front of the mirror in hopes of witnessing magic before my eyes. The frumpy, wide, saggy denim hung around me. What a disappointment.
Samasya Tapasya 