cardigans remembered

For years, I was a cardigan afficionado.  I had many, many cardis in my wardrobe.  I just couldn't get enough of them.  Everytime I'd see one, I'd think "I need that cardi.  I don't have one like it!" 

I had one that was a Christmas gift from my grandmother while I was in high school.  It was a tweedy grey, tunic-length (past the hip) cabled cardi with large, round buttons and pockets.  When I first opened it, at about 17 years old, I didn't love it.  But I remember getting dressed for my first full day of classes in university at 19 years old, to go to my "elite" liberal arts programme with all the other nerds (I write with much love and admiration).  I put on an a-line skirt, my Doc mary-janes, a turtleneck and that cardigan, slung my brown distressed-leather book case over my shoulder, wearing my new funky glasses and my crazed, curly hair, and I looked quite the part of an academic.  I felt like myself, reveling in my geekery, knowing that I was finally peers with people who were actually my peers, people with whom I had much in common in thought and state of mind, not just proximity.

I loved that cardigan during those years.  Somewhere along the way I lost it or got rid of it.  It was knit of some sort of acrylic, so it wasn't particularly dear, but when I see long, cabled cardis sort of like this one of cosmicpluto's, I remember with fondness that big grey sweater and those sweet, wonderful years as an undergraduate.  They say you can't go back again, but if I could, I think I might, not to escape my current life, but to relive with greater enthusiasm and appreciation how delightful those times were.