As I walk past kids my age, I make sure my hoodie or t-shirt is wrinkle-free, with no creases or lumps presenting a neat appearance. I observe other people’s tops contemplating how hoodies and t-shirts reflect the personality of a person, whether what design it displays, to the story the person hides. Every morning, I pick the most distinguishable top; one that self-expresses and sparks conversations with unique individuals that can create a flame. 

A plain gray Nike hoodie. After seven straight months of heavy weight training and bulking, this hoodie has seen loose cuffs below my waist, to a snug fit around my belly. Growing up as a kid, I considered myself a “skinny-fat” body, where I had more body fat than the muscle I had. In the middle of tenth grade, a Christmas present of an “Anytime Fitness” membership empowered me to overcome the negative comments I received on my insecure body. Before I even knew it, I was doing research and executing my four to five-day workout plan: a daily 3,350-calorie clean bulk diet, five grams of creatine, and a gallon of water. My Nike hoodie was there on day one. I’m reminded every time I wear this hoodie on how trusting the process with effort can get you anywhere you wish, no matter the starting point.

A white t-shirt with navy blue “WASHINGTON D.C.” bold text. I seized the unsettling opportunity for introverts to take a two-week vacation with 70 students nationwide. Despite someone who feared learning extroversion, I engaged myself into new interactions while living back at home with other students, ensuring my time wasn’t isolated. With the adrenaline going through my veins, I was meeting soon to become best friends with states such as West Virginia, Illinois, and Kansas. I have felt as if I found the cure for introversion. For the closure of the trip, my primary group of new friends and I picked up matching Washington D.C. t-shirts and our signed names on each back of every t-shirt. I look at this shirt now, reflecting on how I explored social interactions with confidence. As a further testament of my achievement, the new sense of accomplishment came from knowing 27 names on the back of my shirt; this symbolized their acknowledgement that I accomplished my goal of becoming more extroverted. 

An oversized plain white t-shirt, with bubble lettering text of “I’d Flex… But I Like This Shirt”. My favorite sayings growing up was “laughing is the best medicine”, in which my medicine included my humorous family members. During every family gathering, any kind of humor is necessary to happen for us; ranging from harmless jokes to every one of my cousins and an unreasonable amount of childishness, even among the adults. I endorsed this tradition from my goofy uncle who owned this shirt, whose sense of humor was medicine for much of my family. I branch out into the world, in hope to lift someone with humor as minimal as a small smirk on their face, to continue on one of the best medicines in the world!

As I continue through my life, I wish for more stories to be created, so I can create more sparks to flames with people. Looking at the sweatshirts and t-shirts like the gym journey one, the extroverted one, and the one with humor as medicine, I will search for more sweatshirts and t-shirts with stories and embracing each one individually.