What’s Your Damage?

I used to be a sheep. 

Imitation and groupthink were my bread and butter. I regurgitated the opinions of those around me and claimed them as my own. I honestly didn’t know where to begin when it came to having an opinion, so I just… didn’t. 

But then I found a jacket. 

In my freshman days, on a routine trip to purchase clothes with pop culture references that I didn’t even know, I found an army green jacket. 

Light-weight, almost suede-soft, with black drawstrings around the waist and hood. It was by no means a pretty jacket. In fact, it was pretty unconventional and a little ugly, but it was love at first sight. I put it on, and I felt something I’d never felt before. In hindsight, it was a sense of self; something completely foreign to me at the time. I liked this jacket. A lot. And I wanted it, I wanted to wear it, and I needed to have it. After begging like a madman, my mother caved and bought it for me. 

I wore that jacket every day throughout my high school years. I filled its pockets with love, memories, and my youth. It hugged me and my friends through the cold and journeyed with me across countries and continents. Baltimore, New York, Paris, London, Karachi. This jacket gave Mr. Worldwide a run for his money. 

My mother hated it. My best friend hated it. It never matched my outfits and always clashed with my makeup. 

But I loved it, and that was what made it so beautiful to me. 

When I wore that jacket, I didn’t feel like a sheep. I felt like me. The me who learned she loved astronomy and the stars. The me who learned they supported a person’s right to choose. The me who learned that my ability to love transcends trivial human structures like gender. 

That jacket was the first time I ever stuck to my guns. In the face of mockery and uncertainty, I held fast that it was a great jacket and I looked amazing in it. Whether that was true or not is up for debate, but my confidence never wavered, and that’s what mattered to me. 

I became who I am in that jacket, and it still hangs on the first peg in my closet to this day. 

I carry that jacket with me as a way to tether me to my original sense of self. Whenever I start to feel a little empty, or “sheepish,” I put on that jacket and remember how far I’ve come and how much farther I have yet to go.