Fabric Memories, Part I
Woman in the Middle | July 23, 2015When I graduated from college, I had a part time job working for a professor doing research under a grant he had received. It is hard to fathom now, but making $6 an hour in 1984 was good money. I could set my own hours. I was making enough money to pay all my own bills, including the $100 a month I paid my mother for rent.
Then out of nowhere, it was discovered that the grant money had almost run out and in a week I was out of a job. A friend was working at the local mall in a Broadway department store. I got a job there very quickly, to tide me over while I figured out what to do. Minimum wage was approximately $3.35 an hour then, almost half of what I had been making. Instead of being able to comfortably pay my bills I could no longer pay Mom rent while also paying my car insurance and such.
The other problem was I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. I was encouraged to go from being a “floater” at the department store to taking on a more permanent job which would included more hours and staying in one department. However, I had higher aspirations, including going on to earn my master’s degree. I was afraid if I took on the permanent job at the Broadway I would become dependent on the income and would never move on from working in retail. I had not gone to college to spend my life working in retail!
Meanwhile, I floated from department to department. Occasionally I was assigned to the dress department. I would, of course, look around at the pretty dresses. I am a girl after all! One day during my several months at the Broadway, I found a dress on the clearance rack that was made out of soft material that felt almost like silk. It was a beautiful turquoise color with a cream design. There was cream stitching on the edges of the fabric attached to one shoulder that was intended to be pulled across your body and tied on the opposite hip. It was my size and everything! I loved that dress, but had no money to buy it.
Every time I was assigned to the dress department, I checked the clearance rack to see if that dress was still there. Every time it was. Meanwhile, I had finally begun to apply for jobs at our local county. It took months, as the wheels of government move slowly, but I finally got a job at the county planning department. After I gave my notice at the Broadway, but while I still had my employee discount, I went to the dress department and bought the dress I had been dreaming of for so many months. I wore it to a couple of weddings that summer. I bought a straw hat and spray painted it cream to match the cream of my dress. I bought some ribbon the same turquoise color and glued it around the crown of the hat. I felt grand in my long dreamed for dress and my do it yourself hat.
I was much thinner then. I can’t say that the dress did a whole lot for me. But what it represented – dreams of a real job and better pay, and then that becoming a reality, meant a lot to me then and now. It is good to long for something a while before finally achieving it. It means so much more then. And now you know why I kept this dress for so many years!
What a sweet memory!
Good reason for keeping the dress!
Well, it is a good memory, but I need to let these things go. As you know, having less stuff isn’t necessarily bad!
I can see why you held onto that dress for so long. It is still beautiful but it represents your life’s dreams at the time.