a pair of gingham pants would change my life
and other lies I tell myself when the seasons change
The trees have just started to bud, and the temperature has barely touched 60 degrees, still gloomy and a little cold. But mentally, I’m already sprawled out on a picnic blanket with the new Emily Henry, buying fresh tulips at the farmer’s market, drinking a mocktail on a bar’s patio. I have the vision board dancing in my mind, the playlist in my airpods1.
Every season brings with it the secret little desire to become a new person. A new wardrobe would get me there, I’m sure of it. Or maybe if I started a new hobby, or committed to a huge, unrealistic goal. Usually the dream wardrobe is a mix of 90’s rom-com magic and whatever everyone else is buying and then showing off on TikTok2. The new hobby is something a manic-pixie dream girl would do. The unrealistic goal is fueled by a manic energy that encourages me to plan a big move, apply for a new job, tandem-write two new novels at once.
I’m especially guilty of this in the spring— more so, even, than the New Year, New Me frenzy. In the dead of winter, I’m not feeling goal-oriented, unless the goal is to take enough vitamin C to not get sick, and enough vitamin D to not get depressed. Winter is about survival, sleeping more than should be possible, remembering to add a little produce to my diet once in awhile so I don’t get scurvy.
But spring? With its fresh pops of green on every tree, with the emergence of tulips in my neighbors’ front yards, lovingly planted in the dead, rust-toned autumn with the promise of brighter, technicolor days in the future. Spring is all iced matcha lattes and open windows, cherry blossoms, delicate lavender manicures because I don’t technically celebrate Easter, but who can resist the pull of pastels?
Spring makes me think I could be a different person. More social, someone who goes out for drinks after work and calls my friends to catch up. Someone who goes for runs, or plays tennis, or learns how to roller skate instead of letting the skates in my closet collect dust because I’m afraid I’ll fall and skin my knee. Someone who doesn’t waste a minute, who doesn’t succumb to the lure of couch-rotting after work, scrolling instead of doing something productive. When spring pokes its head out, the mere implication of warmth, I think to myself, I could probably write like, three books a year3.
I try to embody the spirit of whatever version of myself I see in the warmer weather. The girl in the gingham pants is easygoing and carefree. She goes to the farmer’s market and buys a bundle of spring blooms. She doesn’t shake when she has to make a phone call. She can drive, because driving doesn’t make her anxious. She’s friendly like a golden retriever! Outgoing like a girl in the bathroom of a bar. She’s productive. She’s trendy but also an individual, so cool it makes other people jealous.
It’s like if I had to write an essay titled what spring means to me, and then distill it down to its essence, it would be a pair of gingham pants. Next year it will be something else, and that thing, too, will not change my life. What I’m looking for, in those gingham pants, isn’t something a pair of pants can give me. Connection, rest, fulfillment, joy, color, excitement.
The first unseasonably hot day in April, everyone scrambling outside with picnic baskets and halter tops and sandals, forgetting sunscreen, to lay by the lake all afternoon— hammocks and frisbees, barking dogs, the college kids sunbathing on the roofs of their rented houses, music blasting.
Knowing deep down that it won’t change my life doesn’t stop me from searching for some sense of satisfaction, the sigh of relief that comes with being the right version of myself. I won’t find it in an Old Navy haul— I’m still me, just me in a cute bodysuit that hops on the ribbon trend, or me but in a pair of wide leg linen pants that make me look cool. I’m still me when I buy a new nail polish, or style my hair a new way, or try a new shade of blush. I’m still me if I order a matcha latte and post about it on Instagram, so everyone knows I’m drinking a matcha latte.
Whatever it is that I’m searching for, gingham pants won’t give it to me. But when I slow down and focus, I find that satisfaction in the first lilac blooms, the sun hitting the surface of the lake just right in the morning, giggling at a hockey game with my best friends, when my husband picks me up from work, the first chords of a new Taylor Swift song, when someone leaves a free Spindrift in the fridge at work, seeing the eclipse, a midday yoga class, a really good sunset, all the windows open on a warm day.
Maybe sitting on the porch in the morning will change my life, maybe the birds will, or the sunlight hitting the disco ball I put in the kitchen window. Maybe turning 30 will change my life4.
Maybe I’m looking in the wrong places for fulfilment, looking to take the easy way out. Satisfaction doesn’t come from two-day shipping, and satisfaction won’t even come from becoming the ideal version of myself, the one who succeeds at all the things I feel I’m failing at. Maybe I just need to sit outside and listen to the birds chirp and remember that I can’t do it all, be it all, accomplish it all. And I wouldn’t be able to even if I was wearing gingham pants.
It’s a lot of Kacey Musgraves and Maggie Rogers, if you were wondering.
I will not succumb to the ballet flats trend– my arches barely survived it the first time.
Dear reader, it took me two years to finish a first draft of my last one.
I’ve long since suspected that to be the case, but I’m a week away and haven’t noticed any changes.