For the past four years, this shirt has covered my back during housework, late night videos, reading in bed and cooking things with red sauce. It also covered my belly during post-baby bodydom and ’round the clock nursing.  I bought it at Old Navy for approximately five dollars right after I had Ethan. It was loose, cool, comfy, and, as you can see, terribly flattering. It has been my trusted friend and companion these long years of Ethantoddlerhood, and it is not without a lump in my throat that I bid it farewell tonight.

I discovered several rather large holes in its front panel today, and I wondered: how long had they been there? Weeks, months, years? I wouldn’t know; I generally avoided mirors when wearing this shirt. I decided that stumbling upon these holes tonight may have been the Universe telling me that it was, in fact, time to let go. (Vanity certainly wasn’t going to do it.) And so with trembling fingers I pack  Good ‘Ole Purple into my Goodwill bag and send it soaring into the great beyond. May it grace another mother’s menial tasks (read: life) the way it has graced mine.