the Fabric of Life...

hat if you chose a mate like you do a bathrobe?

I washed my old bathrobe this morning...its been my cozy friend for more than 25 years! Thinking back to when I acquired it, and why I never felt the need to replace it, got me to thinking this...does one person really need to hang onto more than one bathrobe through out adult life?

I think I'm a prime candidate to answer that question! I found this bathrobe in Kmart many years ago.  I didn't buy it, I picked it up admired it and put it back on the rack...my Mom was with me.   She noticed my admiration and later came back alone and bought it, wrapped it up, and gave it to me as a Christmas present.  The robe came with slippers and a sash to tie.  It was made of 100% cotton terry with a creamy color background and pale stripes of color running up and down and had two large pockets.  The size was a bit big for me, a generous 2X, Mom didn't check the size since it was the last one on the rack! 

YES, I was surprised to see the robe I had admired now mine! I tried it on, the sleeves were long and had to be rolled up, the sash was abundant and had to be tied up in a bow to use up some of that length, but the robe was very comfortable and durable! It had a nice sturdy loop in the collar to hang it up...so I put it into use.  

The slippers lasted less than one year...I think I'm a little too rough on slippers! I have been known to walk outside in my slippers... to the mailbox which for me means a long trip up the dirt driveway, across the deep sandy road, and back. So these slippers went into the trash way before Christmas rolled around again. I did push them around on the floor of my closet for a while before tossing 'em in sympathy for the now "lone" robe. 

Each shower ended with the robe snugly swaddled around me, and between times it was draped on a brass hook in the bathroom, right next to my husband's robe. Every now and then on a cold night I stayed wrapped up in it till bedtime, and then it went back on the hook.  It hung next to his as our child grew up, went off to college, and moved away from home.  I packed it in my suitcase when our marriage crumbled.  It took up a lot of space, I had to sit on the case to get it zipped, but it was coming with me no way around that. 

Then it hung on a new hook in a new to me bathroom, alone.  I washed dishes in my little studio apartment wearing my one bathrobe. It dried me after showers, it warmed me on snowy nights, it comforted me while I watched sad movies and I reached into the pocket for tissues.  When I went to bed sometimes I spread it over my quilt for extra warmth.  It did double and triple duty.  

I shed many a tear, laughed many times, shook in fear, ate many a meal, cuddled up with many a book or movie while wearing my tattered but not torn friend...the familiarity of the cozy cotton sometimes substituted as a hug from missed loved ones.  When the healing was well under way the bathrobe and I moved again...back to my home town.  This time it fit better in the case one now not so full of excess baggage.  It saw me through new hard times...getting that new job, then getting fired, depression, sickness, divorce, more depression, accidents, good, bad, ugly, and always a to comfort me.

I realize the reason this bathrobe is the ONLY one I've had for many years is it was the right one for me.  The fit is flexible, the color just right, the material perfect.  There is no reason to replace something that is the right one...if it had not been the right one, maybe it would have hung in the dark corner of my closet for an appropriate amount of time then sneaked off to the Goodwill to become the fave of some other woman.  It may have been cut into cleaning cloths, or been re-gifted... ya know. None of the above happened.  It was not replaced by many other robes, it didn't become one in a stable of many choices, it was MY ONE robe.  I was attached the moment I saw it, but I left it behind...it found a way to get to me anyway! That got me thinking. 

What if we chose a mate like we chose a bathrobe? One per lifetime...maybe we pass it up to see if it will find it's way to us.  It has to be a good fit, flexible, made of the right stuff, and be attractive to us...if it doesn't do those things does it hang around until we can find a way to get rid of it? Do we secretly despise it while we go about our life adding other robes to try, looking for other things (alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, food, saddness, depression, violence, rage) to satisfy that empty need, that desire, for the perfect fit? I think so! Then I have to ask this...right away we know if its a keeper or one to toss back. It's not the right fit, its snug and confining, the sleeves are to short so we cant reach out, its stiff, inflexible, and uncomfortable.  Other people are uncomfortable when they are around us in that robe, they see the ill fit... yet we hang it on the hook and we hope it will become the right size, the right texture, the right stuff...but the only thing that happens is it becomes tattered, torn, old, and even uglier. 

SO the lesson here is... if you don't want that bathrobe get rid of it quickly!   Let it go when there is still bright color in the fabric, softness and springiness to the loft, and while there is plenty of time left to hang on the right person's hook and be appreciated each and every day for a life time.  Don't allow it to hang there and become droopy, dirty, old, and worn out with nothing left to offer. Give it away, set it free, pass it on when it still has a life in front of it.  Why hold on to something that really and truly is not yours and you know it!  Get yourself a new robe right away hang it up proudly with the knowledge that a life time of comfort is on your horizon.

My robe is tumbling in the dryer getting all fluffed and clean.  When I take it out I will give it a shake, place the long sash back through the waist loops, and hang it on the hook in the bathroom, the one hook.  And that is the lesson I learned....I'm a one hook person!  There is a lesson for life in every thing around us, it applies across the board, its up to us to put those lessons into action. 

So are you going to hang onto that ill fitting robe, wash and hang the one you love,  or buy a new one?  The choice is up to you.