I’ve never liked wearing jeans.
It’s not something purposeful about me – I don’t object to them morally. I’ve just never been a person who wears jeans. I wear long skirts, sweatpants, corduroys – leggings – just not jeans.
Then last summer, my agency instituted Casual Friday – meaning, employees can wear jeans to work every Friday. Everyone clapped when this announcement was made, and, self-centered person that I am, my instant thought was that this would mean nothing to me because I don’t wear jeans, ever.
A few days after the Casual Friday Announcement, I was browsing the racks at the Goodwill store in Westminster and I decided to take a look at the jeans section. I found a pair my size, tried them on quickly, and decided to buy them. They were $6.37.
I wore the jeans on the agency’s first-ever Casual Friday. We all felt a little illicit walking in the door that day – worried that the announcement had been a joke, or that we’d be the only ones who chose to wear jeans, thus ending our professional careers and sense of self-respect in the school. Then, once everyone looked around and noticed that hey, it’s cool, it’s jeans Friday, it’s all good – it turned into a day full of smiles and silliness, feeling like everything at work was a little less reverent, a little more free and fun.
And, more su
rprisingly, I felt good in my jeans. I liked them. They were comfortable, and they looked good.
I was eating lunch with a co-worker and explaining about my Goodwill jeans when she pointed something out to me. “Those are fancy jeans,” she said. I didn’t understand. She pointed to the label, and I then realized that my new $7 Goodwill jeans were actually designer jeans – and fancy.
Hence my epiphany – IS IT POSSIBLE THAT I’VE ALWAYS BEEN A JEANS PERSON, but just never realized it because I don’t buy fancy jeans?
I blogged recently about my Gas Station Epiphany – you can read it here – when I learned that it’s actually not a big deal if you forget to take out the gas pump and drive away with the pump still connected to your gas tank. Mind blown.
How many other epiphanies are in store for me in my thirties? I feel like I know myself fairly well, but I’m constantly learning more things about myself and the world. Like learning how introverted I am. Like realizing that I prefer solo exercise to group exercise. Like realizing I enjoy routine and familiarity.
Now I’m sitting here in my fancy jeans, wondering what other thirtysomething epiphanies are in my future and excited to find out what they are.
