Tonight I write about cardigans. Josh requested I write about cardigans, and, as I have little else to write about, I shall offer you a few thoughts about cardigans.

I have a long history with cardigans. As a Scottish school girl, the cardigan was an integral part of my identity. And uniform.  That formative period of my life left me with a general distaste for cardigans. I’ve always been the rebellious type; thus, I felt it necessary to rebel against cardigans for a long time. This led me to embrace several alternative fashion faux pas from the mid 90′s until about 2003. I’m talking about serious faux pas. On many a day, I left the house wearing denim from head to toe. I even carried a denim purse. I owned denim shirts and skirts and jackets and pants, and I wore them all in some sort of ridiculous blue ensemble. Don’t even get me started on the strange color combinations that I paired with my Old Navy tech vest. Although I courted cardigans upon occasion, I was bullied out of my openness to the garments by a giant, butch pain in my ass, who gave me hell for wearing pink.  Looking back, I see nothing wrong with my hot pink sweater, but I suppose anything from the Gap or Old Navy would intimidate a 13-year-old who grew up on a basketball court and lived in over-sized sweat pants.

So it seems strange that cardigans have become a staple of my clothing diet.

In the past six months, I bought at least 5 or 6 cardigans, all of which I’ve over worn to the point of destruction. I love cardigans. Two of said cardigans are pink, and I’m sure everyone I know is sick of seeing me in pink cardigans. On a particularly bad day, I found myself waiting in line at the Tommy Hilfiger outlet, baby pink cardigan in hand. It took every ounce of will power I had to put it back and walk out of the store. I own black cardigans. I own grey cardigans. I have biscuit coloured cardigans. Yes. Plural. Three biscuit coloured cardigans, to be exact. Beige, if you prefer.

Why am I telling you all of this? It just serves to illustrate that we’re a product our journeys. It might be my nature, after all, I come from a long line of cardigan-wearing women. It might be nurture; I was raised with cardigans, sweater sets, and films in which Doris Day wore cardigans. Whatever the reason, cardigans are in my blood.

The sooner we embrace our roots, the living history in us, the better. You can runaway from who you are and your past, but it’s still going to be there. When you finally confront it, it will hit you with a vengeance. You will wake up one day with a closet full of cardigans.

I’m a girl who wears cardigans. I’m not even cool enough to rock a hipster look. I am a Gap poster child reject. And I’m happy with that.