We Mend Ourselves But Not Our Clothes

I noticed looking through pictures from vacation that on the last day I was in Delaware my wife snapped two pictures of me wearing a white Adidas visor and a yellow Relient K tee.  I am tan from a week at the beach and my hair is all tassled.
I have another picture of myself in that yellow Relient K tee from eight years ago.  I was a lifeguard then, a junior in high school, and very tan.  My hair was short.  My glasses were round and undistinguished.  I had the white visor’s twin on, a blue Adidas visor.
Now I have long hair and cool glasses.  I also have stubble, which was impossible back then.
What most struck me though was that I was wearing the same clothing from eight years ago.
I don’t want to pat myself on the back here (well, one, two, three…okay I’m done), but this juxtaposition struck me as profound in our consumerist culture.  We’re in a giant tornado of a receission ripping a path through prestigious business and yuppies bank accounts, yet everyone I know, including myself has new clothes.
I don’t have nearly as many as most, I can proudly say that, but I also just shopped at a GAP outlet on vacation.  Pray for me.
We can change a lot in eight years, whether in mind, body, or appearance, yet most of us stay the same.  When we are broken we mend ourselves.  When our clothes rip, when our computer malfunctions, when the plank breaks we don’t mend them: we buy new wardrobes, new computers, and build additions onto our houses.  We throw away everything when it is perfectly fixable or wearable.  And that is in a recession.  It’s pathetic.

 

I’ve been taking inventory of my old clothes.  The reigning champions are my pairs of shorts: two Umbro shorts and olive drab cargo shorts I got before I started eighth grade.  They’re over ten years old.  Shane Claiborne would be proud of me.  It encourages me if anything to trust in the ability to endure, that the "new" won’t solve any problems.  The new will become old soon enough anyway, so just stay with the old.  Retro is in I here.