Old Habits and Old T-Shirts
This year was different. I didn’t wear the same t-shirt
from the first day of school on the last. Instead, I had
participated in senior activities and the associated
outfits. It was different. I had done my silly tradition
since sometime in middle school, but old habits can
die quickly. Today was different. I wore the same
t-shirt I wore on the first day of the program I went
to last summer. That competitive one that all the smart
kids in Kentucky try to go to. Maybe it was because
it might boost my confidence or maybe it was simply
because it felt right to me. Last night, I was reading
a novel and one of the main characters died young.
Maybe it’s the poet in me, but today felt important.
I can’t go back, yet I’m still figuring out how to go
forward. Old t-shirts can only take me so far. It’s all
so clique, but today I felt like I was in the middle of
one of those major milestones of life. It was different.
3 thoughts on "Old Habits and Old T-Shirts"
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As poets, the more we explore truth and life through our words, the more we seem to be sensitive to when something is momentous or different. We may not be able to define it what that difference is, but we can appreciate what is happening. This poem captures that sense of wonder very well.
“I can’t go back, yet I’m still figuring out how to go forward”—this is amazing, and I feel this line in my bones. I like how you deal with moving on when you’re craning your neck to look back at what you’ve left behind. Beautiful!
I love it!
Great writing! I feel you!