I started running in my twenties, and since that time, I have run well over 100,000 miles. About thirty years ago, I ordered two fleece running jackets, one a cerulean blue and the other, a dark maroon, from a popular runner’s outlet website. Both were soft, warm, and lined on either side with broad black bands of color. The moment I slipped one on, I felt like an elite runner ready to take on any course. Both light weight tops fit perfectly, felt incredibly comfortable, and made me eager to lace up and head out for my next run.
I started wearing the blue top first, exclusively, until one late Fall Sunday morning. After shucking the top off, I tossed it into one of cubbies by the start line on that unpredictably warm morning. After the race, I drove home contentedly, got inside and pulled my towel out from my knapsack to toss it in the wash, and searched for my top. It was only then that I had realized I had left it at the park.
With that realization a sinking sensation hit me and I questioned, “Did I really do that?” Without hesitation, I got back in my car and drove the twenty minutes to the park to search for it. I stood at the block of cubbies checking every last one, anxiously hoping I’d find it there. I didn’t. Crestfallen, I drove home disappointed, but consoled myself with the thought, “at least I have the maroon one.” From that day on, I reached for for that top on a multitude of occasions and continued to for 30 years. That is… until it was no longer in reach.
A Trusty Companion
That little maroon jacket had became less like a piece of gear and more like a trusty companion. It saw me through dozens of Sunday morning 10ks, kept the chill off during hundreds of runs around town, became my gym layer in the air-conditioned cardio room and my yoga cover-up on hot summer mornings, shielding me from the bright sun n as I made my way to the Yoga studio. That little light weight jacket was with me when I chased personal records and became a testament to my continuing to just show up wherever and whenever. Recently when I held it up to put it on, or folded it after a wash, I could see right through it; it was so threadbare, and so perfect on hot summer days.
Slitting My Wristbands
Two years ago, I decided to cut the wristbands off the top because they had become so frayed and tattered. Yet somehow, all its imperfections made it feel, if not look, even better. It was no longer just an outer layer, it was an integral part of my life’s journey, with every worn thread representing another mile, another race, another day I had woken up and put my shoes on.
The Day It Disappeared
Earlier this week, I brought it to the yoga studio, dangling around my neck to protect my shoulders from the sun, or at least that’s the last time I recall having it with me. When I got home and couldn’t find it, that same familiar dread from 30 years ago, came rushing back — except bigger this time. I was nearly close to panic.
This wasn’t just an outer layer that protected me for years. It had been through thousands of days with me, hundreds of runs and many of my life’s experiences. I went back to the studio that evening and searched the floor, the bathrooms, the shower area, the lost and found, the washing machine and dryer and left my name at the front desk. Nothing. Zippo. Nada. No one called to say that had it there.
I checked the gym the next day, then my car, my washing machine, my knapsack, and every corner of my house, more than once, growing more frantic each time I came up empty handed. And then finally, I had to accept that it was gone, swallowed up somewhere in the vast unknown like so many things that quietly disappear from our lives –our socks, keys, wallets, our former selves. Even now, I’m surprised by how hard the final certainty of my loss affected me.
The End of the Line
And so I’ve concluded that that little, worn maroon top layer with the quarter zipper had finally reached the end of its journey with me and I with it, which caused me to wonder whether the loss of this top layer is a harbinger of things to come – the cartilage in my knees wearing away, friends I’ve known slipping past me, things I have come to hold dear evaporating. The little jacket had never been special because of what it was made of, but because of the memories I’ve associated it with.
And perhaps losing a thirty-year-old jacket isn’t really about the loss of a jacket, but rather about how life keeps handing us that same arc, over and over, if we’re paying attention: At first, there’s the newness, that first soft fleece pulled out of a bag and the excitement that comes with it– the potential, the fullness of the possibilities it represents. There’s the comfort that comes later– the thing we stop noticing because we’ve come to rely on it so completely without giving it a second thought. And then, eventually, there’s the dread — the quiet knowledge that something, and ultimately everything, we hold onto we will someday have to let go of.
The point is that it’s okay to grieve something as small as a worn piece of fabric for what it quietly represented to us– the experiences through the years, the triumphs, the disappoints, the comfort, the reliability, and for representing the version of ourselves that is a part of our identity– through the rain, the heat, the snow, the ice, and even the days we don’t feel like pushing ourselves past all of it.
Because we don’t tend to grieve the things that never mattered, I’ll let myself feel this loss fully, and then I’ll lace up tomorrow anyway, without it– a little wiser about how much can live inside something so ordinary, and a little more grateful for something that was a part of my life for so many years.
