My Friend, the Pajama Pants
May 23rd 2007 11:21 pm
Relationships are wonderful. You share laughs and cries, and everything in between. There’s another lesser known fact about relationships though. You lose some shit.
The other person takes your stuff.
It’s not a bad thing, however. Let me explain.
When you first start out, just hanging out, you’re careful to not leave anything behind and the other person’s house/apartment/tent under a bridge. You’re not sure about the whole situation, so who needs to forget things. But then things start to work a little bit, sparks fly, clothes come off, etc. Maybe you leave a hat, or a hair tie or something. Now these little things you leave aren’t really the big deal. It’s the things the other person takes.
They don’t take things in some serious ‘this is mine’ way. They take things in a joking, playful way. Usually it’s clothes: hoodies, pajama pants, T shirt…something quick like that. It’s usually because they are crashing at your place, and need something to sleep in, or are walking home and it’s cold out. Now at first you give them the item of clothing. Like I said, they need something to sleep in or it’s cold, so you’re a nice person and offer up something (I’m writing this from the guy’s perspective with a female ‘other person’, but it works for all scenarios). Eventually, it becomes their piece of clothing at your place. If they are over and you’re having a lazy day, they are wearing that stuff. Even further down the road, it just ends up at their place, because they like wearing it so much, they wear it around their place when they are having a lazy day.
But you don’t care. You care a little bit, because it’s usually some article of clothing you enjoy wearing too, but hey, you’re a nice person, so you offered it to them. Shit. But you still don’t really care. You care to the point of playful wrestling at times and make a weak effort to tickle it away from the person or something, but when you lose, you have a stupid grin on your face, because you’re happy they are kind of attached to this piece of clothing.
But what happens when you break up? A few things can happen. If you break up badly (cheating, for example) they can be a bitch and keep your shit, but more often than not, they will probably make extra effort to get all your shit back to you, possibly by throwing it. If you break up cleanly it’s different. If you’re in love and you break up cleanly, it’s even more different. If you break up cleanly, you might get things back right away, in an effort to prevent awkwardness so you can still be friends. They might keep you things for a while though, maybe to ease out of things.
Now if you love the person, there is a whole different philosophy about the clothing. And by whole different philosophy I mean some shit I came up with today when I was walking home and had nothing to do but think. This philosophy doesn’t apply to all situations though, it’s just something I’ve mapped things to in my own life.
If you love the person, like really love, they have your heart. You’ve given it to them to care for, and to have and to hold (in a metaphorical sense, as cheesy as that sounds). Kind of like the clothes you gave them. Clothes are very symbolic in this scenario as well, because they wrap the person up, cover their body, protect them. It’s like you are there keeping them safe when they wear them. If you break up cleanly when you love the person, this can still be there. Maybe you aren’t at the same place in life, and you want something different. Things happen, but it doesn’t mean you just up and stop loving the person. Hopefully, you’ll stay friends and hang out. This is why you might not see your pajama pants for some time. You still care for the person, and they still feel it, so you don’t whine too much about not having your pants back, nor do they make the effort to get them to you. Despite the fact you broke up for a reason, the feelings might still be there.
That’s why I kind of felt bad taking my pants back today. I know she still loves me as a friend, I still love her to death, but to have the pants come back…I dunno. One part of me said “yes, finally I can sleep in these again” (granted they are a warmer pair of pants and summer is upon us), but a bigger part of me thought ”...are you sure? You don’t want them anymore?”. Two months to the day, and my pants come back. They were sort of a last piece for both of us to physically and metaphorically hold onto, but now since I have them again, it doesn’t work as well.
I mean, it’s not like she threw them back at me “take your pants back!”. She felt bad about still having my pants after two months, which corresponds to how she feels about my heart. She doesn’t want to hold onto it forever, lest I can never hold hers.
All this over pants.
It hurts a little to have them back, but it’s part of the healing process.
It’s things like this that make me believe more and more that I’ll never fall out of love with her, but simply become more adept at dealing with the fact that I am in love (more on this later). She’s an amazing girl, and she’ll be in my heart. Any time she wants some pajama pants to sleep, I’ll be ready if she’ll wear mine.
About the author... Daniel Huckstep is a software engineer(ing student) at the University of Alberta. He enjoys all aspects of computers and their software, reptiles, guitar and music creation, reading, and macaroni salad. 
