I Am Your New Favorite Sweater and I Need You To Change

TaraAltebrando
4 min readDec 18, 2023
Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

Listen. I get it. You like me. You really, really like me. I’ve heard you tell the story a few times now, about how you saw an acquaintance at a PTO meeting wearing this incredible sweater and you asked her where she got it, and it turned out her teenage daughter thrifted it as a gift for her but the brand was recognizable — thank god! — so you went home and found me on Mercari and I arrived six days later which was three days after you panic-messaged the seller who had not shipped me yet.

I was excited, when I arrived at your address after a long, terrifying voyage from Idaho to New York — in a recycled Amazon box embalmed in packing tape — to have landed in a lovely-seeming home that has air plants and smells of ambitious dinners and Bath and Bodyworks room misters. When you immediately took off the ratty old hoodie you were wearing and slipped me over your head, it felt like coming home.

But that was two weeks ago, and you’ve worn me every goddamn day since.

I appreciate that you don’t sleep in me, I should note. Much gratitude there! But you haven’t even washed me yet and I still smell faintly of the cloying lavender detergent they used at my former home. This is why your dog (who needs his nails clipped, btw) keeps sniffing me! In addition, I was not loved in Idaho so I have feelings that I…

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TaraAltebrando
TaraAltebrando

Written by TaraAltebrando

College essay coach. Author of The Leaving, Take Me With You, and more. Creator of the Dream Breachers podcast on Pinna. Also formerly Tara McCarthy.

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