“I know this looks like any old cardigan, but pls. bear with me. During my last stay in a psychiatric hospital, almost 2 years ago, my husband brought me my favorite olive green cardigan hoping that it might help me feel safe.
I don’t remember how I lost it as I had disassociated during my time there and have huge gaps in my memory. I only know when it was finally time to be discharged and they handed my husband and I the brown paper bag with my belongings and a short itemized list of its contents, my cardigan was not in there.”
“Note to self: Do not bring anything you would mind losing with you to a psych ward. How many precious things have I lost in a psych ward over the years? My Strokes sweatshirt, my perfectly broken in pair of ballet flats, the comfiest violet leggings, my sense of safety, normalcy, my sanity… I tried searching online for another one, but never came across one. The loss of my favorite cardigan, among the many other things I’ve lost in my life, was just one more thing I had to radically accept. Today while thrifting, at a thrift store just a few miles from the hospital where I stayed, I found an olive green cardigan just like mine, same brand, same size, even the same kind of buttons as the one I had lost.
Well, this could even be the exact same one I once owned. Who knows? I was unsettled by my find, and also ecstatic by my discovery. I bought it, washed it and am now finding comfort in this one little thing returned to me by the universe.”
