What we wear has a way of defining the times of our lives. In “Life with the Girls” this Valentine’s Day, Janet Siroto sifts through three decades’ worth of memories to find that, though so much has changed, things have actually held up pretty well.
I was rooting around the back of my dresser, packing up to move out of the house I’d lived in for the last 15 years…years that saw our kids go from boys to men, filling the house with longboards and electric guitars. Years that saw my husband and I through midlife milestones good (woo-hoo, bigger and better jobs!) and not so good (boo-hoo, how did we get this deep into the home-equity line of credit?).
In the way, way back of the dresser, wedged behind socks, was The Green Bra. It was like unexpectedly bumping into an old friend you barely recognize: Here was this ancient lace thing in a squint-inducing shade of fluorescent green, a memento of single-girl days deep in the past. It brought back waves of memories: gallivanting around NYC’s East Village in its rough-and-tumble incarnation, when crack vials littered the streets and you could still pass Joey Ramone, may he rest in peace, on the corner. It reminded me of flirting in dive bars where tsunamis of cigarette smoke washed over us; of wearing skirts so short they were more like very wide belts; of emerging from clubs as the sun rose.
The Green Bra embodied a transitional time. It was bought when I was a wild young thing and stayed in rotation for a brief period when I was an engaged woman, but it disappeared when I was a wedded lady. No need to send an “eyes over here!” message anymore.
The Green Bra got me thinking. As my marriage nears its 30th anniversary—the same age I was when I wed my husband—I looked back over the pieces that defined the eras of our union.