A Perfect Potato Sack

          Sporting a hem that was far below my knees, my navy blue jumper basically reached my knee socks.  The neckline was practically up to my chin. A nightmare for the average fourteen-year-old girl. But to me? It meant not having to brush my hair in the morning or put on makeup. While wearing it I was accepted and included and surrounded by others who understood me. If wearing that ugly jumper meant being around my best friends for six hours a day then I would wear it for the rest of my life. Sadly, I was only given four years to wake up at 5 a.m., groggily stumble on a bus and sneak coffee and bagels into homeroom, where we napped on the floor with sweats on over our jumpers.

         A classic Catholic School uniform, it transformed itself in so many ways over the four years I spent in high school. While freshman year was characterized by its bagginess and all the ways it reminded me of a potato sack, sophomore year would be characterized by its familiarity and becoming shorter and tighter thanks in part to the chocolate chip cookies and chicken fingers in our cafeteria. Junior year we received our rings with their brilliant stones shining against the navy monstrosity that was the Nazareth Academy potato sack. Yet senior year brought the most changes. In the nostalgic midst of choosing colleges and saying our goodbyes, we stapled our hems shorter and came to terms with the fact that they would no longer zipper. Thus revealing the left armpits of our white collared shirts.

         So many special moments were shared in the modest glory of an outfit that made me feel like a nun and not even mind. Friends who attended public schools would constantly poke fun but they simply did not understand the benefits of having questionable hygiene, eating too much food and acting like dudes with over four hundred other like-minded teenage girls. At the time it was easy to take for granted wearing the same thing each and every day but in the illumination of the past I can appreciate each rip, tear and stain in its course fabric as a reminder of where I came from and where I learned who I am. I occasionally gaze at it still swinging in my closet and four years worth of friendship, laughter, tears and learning flash before my eyes. From the torture of freshman week to wearing it out to dinner in Disney World after graduation, I grew up in a potato sack.