As I looked at myself in the mirror in a pair of great fitting jeans I saw my future.
These pants will experience the future with me.
I will wear them to chem lab in college a year or so from now. They will be with me during tech week of the fall play in four months. I will wear them on a night of bowling with friends during finals week to kill off stress.
I know I can't predict my future, but I see it in these jeans. Sometimes the future is there, but it is represented in an everyday object, like jeans.
But these pants are also my past. They remind me of the times when I wanted to hide in my typical, non-descript clothing choices, rather than a new skirt. But they remind me of the good times too, like getting an A on an essay I worked for weeks on that pushed my grade up at the very end of the semester. They remind me of the past, and when the future happens, they will remind me of those times as well. These jeans are my life.
Even if they don't make it until my 80th birthday, they will be a holder of memories from my younger years when I gained, rather than gave out knowledge.
But jeans have their faults, just like people.
They have always been a bit too big in the pelvic area, and itchy in the waistband. The changing blue tone from the thigh to the calf annoys me. Maybe one day they will get paint splattered on them, or ripped by a corner of a sheet of plywood when we work until ten at night to meet deadlines in time for opening night. The pants themselves have a future ahead of them. I may leave them in a bag in my closet after I changed out of them at school and be forgotten, doomed to a life in a dark space.
My future, and their future are ready to be seen.