Wearing the Green

I know, this is coming two days too late, but I'm sharing it anyway.

In my closet hangs a shirt that only gets used once a year. It's my St. Patrick's Day shirt, and it's ONLY for St. Patrick's Day. That's because it's SO VERY green.

A long time ago, it was actually an article of clothing I wore on a regular basis. When I was in high school, it was the 80's, and neon became popular. We saw a lot of neon colored clothes, socks, hair things, and bright colors were the norm. I lived out in California, and my mother would take us clothes shopping out in San Francisco at all of the clothing outlets. This was before outlet malls were popular, so when you looked for outlets, you were seriously looking through the warehouse district of the city. One of our favorite outlet stores was the Esprit outlet. It was the first outlet that looked more like a store than an old warehouse, and Esprit was the brand of clothes that all the in-style girls and boys wore. One of the outfits I got was a black skirt with poison-green neon plaid design on it, and a matching oversized shirt to go with it. Paired with a black shirt, that outfit turned heads. Because it was so bright.

I wore my poison-green outfit to work, to church, and to school. Eventually, however, style trends changed, I went to college and gained that "Freshman 15" everyone was talking about, and I had to retire the dress. The shirt was just too perfect to give away, though. It was oversized so I could still wear it, and I knew that nowhere on the planet would I ever find a shirt that color of green ever again. I was right. I have worn my green shirt every St. Patricks Day ever since. It was able to still fit me through gaining much more than the "Freshman 15" and losing it all again. It was able to survive several moves, children, and all of the other activities life gives us.

I put on my shirt a few days ago for it's annual unveiling, and ran to the school to provide treats for my daughter's class. I had comments follow me all through the hallway.

"Wow, that is REALLY green!"

"Did you see her shirt?"

"Look at you, green lady!"

Yup. It still works. One of these days, I'll have to get a picture of it, but I'm afraid it will break the camera....