Trophies

So, last night I was watching an episode of "How I Met Your Mother" which I must confess makes me laugh and is perfect for when I'm too tired to form sentences but unable to drag myself up the stairs to bed. 20 minutes of that, and my laughter has sufficiently reinvigorated me to climb the stairs.

Anyway, the episode talked about all the STUFF we accrue from past relationships and how it can be offensive to the person we are currently with. This made me think about all the stuff I still have. My dad always referred to the random pieces of clothing, jewelry, CDs, etc. as my trophy collection.

The jewelry stays in my jewelry box because I don't wear jewelry except for my wedding ring, ever. There are times when I look in the mirror and think, "I'm sure that this outfit would be totally accentuated by the right necklace, but I have no idea which one or how to pick it." Seriously. I'm helpless without my gaggle of gay boys on the east coast or my completely en vogue sisters in the Rocky Mountains. It's tragic.

All of our CDs got stolen when we first moved to Ohio. I almost cry when I think about how many thousands of dollars went into that, but whatever. It's just stuff.

The mix tapes live on, of course. And I will keep them until they cease to work...or everyone forgets what a tape player is.

That leaves the clothing. I have always preferred boys' clothes to girls', so I had quite a collection of baggy jeans and flannels (ah, the 90s!) and t-shirts from past relationships. I have been married for so long, however, that most of them have disintegrated with age. (Except for the ones I put in my quilts. I made a quilt out of old jeans and one out of old T-shirts. My trophies live on!) The one exception is a sweatshirt.

I love this sweatshirt. It is gray and was from a certain young man's winning tennis championship. AND it has his name embroidered on the front in small letters above the left breast. When Todd and I first got married, I was feeling particularly generous and told him that if it truly bothered him, I would get rid of my favorite sweatshirt. He, no doubt eager to prove his valor, assured me that he was confident in my love for him, and no such gesture would be necessary. And we left it at that.

All was well while we lived in NJ. We lived in the same town that Todd grew up in, and attended the same church that he'd attended all through his childhood. In other words, everyone already knew me as "Todd's wife". So, if I happened to wear a shirt that had another man's name on it, which also happens to be one syllable starting with "T", people were not at all confused by it.

The trouble came when we moved to Ohio. Nobody knew Todd, and due to our respective natures, I was the person who got to know all the neighbors and people at church first. It has been three years and people are just now able to confidently remember his name. They always got that it was one syllable and started with "T", but...

About a year after we moved here, I mentioned to him this phenomena and that I thought it was related to the sweatshirt. He was quiet for a minute and then confessed, with the familiarity of many years together, that the shirt did bother him a little bit. No longer the magnanimous newlywed, I laughed and informed him that the statute of limitations for complaining about trophies was five years, and long since passed.

So, I still wear the sweatshirt. And people are still confused. But just often enough I steal one of Todd's sweatshirts, too, and he gets that absurd look of ownership when I wear it that boys get when they see a girl in their clothes. As if to say, "See! That's MINE."

Then again, he might just be thinking that about his sweatshirt.