I am a sweat pants and t-shirt kind of girl. It's what I wear when I'm around my room cleaning or trying to get stuff done, and sometimes even down to the dining hall for dinner if am not feeling inclined to put my "out-of-the-room clothes" back on. The worst feeling the world is having to wake up in the morning and endure the initial contact of actual clothing on my skin, so I usually try todelay it until the last possible second. And so my day begins.
It is bad enough to vacate the protective shell of warmth and comfort created by the soft linen sheets and cushiony silk down that are my bed covers; but then to have to peel off the pajamas that are like a second layer of skin to me is total and complete agony in surrender. I remove the pants first, to get the worst of it over with. Along with the removal of the long, soft, fleece-lined sweat pants that just barely graze the skin comes the feeling of cold and vulnerable nakedness. I quickly try to block these thoughts from my mind as I grab a pair of jeans and pull them on, one leg at a time. I wince at the feeling of the cool, restrictive feeling of the denim material, clenching itself around my legs and binding me within the coarse, rough walls of its inflexible imprisonment. I button the hard, cold, brass button at the top, and zip up the jagged teeth that make up the sides of zipper, lacing myself in to this blue jean cage indefinitely.
I breathe in deeply, as the most difficult and excrutiating part of the dressing process comes to a conclusion, the first steps in becoming a functional human being for the day complete, and move on to strappping on a bra, which surprisingly doesn't bother me as much as putting on a pair of jeans does. It is comforting, the feeling of lift an dsupport a bra provides me; it's like waking up for the day, knowing that life is hard, but you have friends. I feel the chill in the air of my room and quickly try to correct it by slipping a gray camisole over my head. The feeling of the light cotton material against the skin of my torso is like Heaven is holding me in the palms of its hands. I pull on a flowy, blue, spaghetti-strap tank top over the camisole, and think of how at least the top part of my self can feel the freedom of movement today, as the dreaded jeans come into my mind again, with their pulling, pinching tension. I love this shirt, I think to myself, trying to keep the start of my day on a positive note. Wearing this shirt is like being held in the arms of someone you love and danced around a field of flowers on a sunny day. It is like being cradled in a cloud of security and knowing I am safe and free, fearless and beautiful.
And as I think these things, I notice the denim of the jeans beginning to loosen its grip around my legs. The tightness is not as much as earlier. They are a reassuring hand on my knee, a strong arm around my waist. Knowing I can breathe now, I walk out the door and face the world wondering how soon it will be before I will want to put my sweats back on.
This short was written in response to a prompt asking the writer to describe the feeling of touch.