Denim is the new Velveteen

I'd rather be a pair of well-worn jeans, loved and familiar, reached for on the daily, than hang on a rack, admired from afar, known by no one, empty.

What profit to be perfectly stitched, faded only at art's intention, embellished, loops forever untugged, only for show?

I don't belong in the window or on the runway.
I'm fine with falling to the floor in a heap after my element-shielding shift is over. As long as I've given all day long, stretched a comfortable close around them, then I am all I am meant to be.

I used to judge those well-worn jean ladies. I thought they were missing out on being somebody. Didn't they care about career and accomplishment? I shook my head and wrote them off. I'm sure it's great to be a wife and mom, but is that really all you want to be? And then I added a "not that there's anything wrong with that" to get myself off the hook for being judgmental.

Well. I can't speak for last year or for next week, but for now I answer my own wagging finger. Yes. Today that's all I want to be.
Because even though I spent a decade swearing I'd never let myself get lost and faded and stretched at the hands of another, it turns out I'd rather be really important to somebody than be somebody really important.

And this wife and mother gig? No one is more surprised than I at how perfectly it fits.

(And none of this is to say that you can't be important to somebody and also be somebody important. Of course you can be both. I was just telling you what I'd pick if we were playing the "would you rather game". So, Oprah, when you read this, don't get all offended, okay? I'm sure you're really important to somebody in addition to being somebody really important. And also know if that if you want me to come on the show, I'm totally open to it, even though I said that thing about not belonging on display. It was just a metaphor. Seriously, call me.)