She lightly traced her fingertips across the items hanging in her wardrobe, from right to left, then back again. Some of the garments were cotton, while others were cashmere, velvet, and silk. Yet each item, regardless of the texture, felt delicate beneath her touch. The items, carefully and intentionally arranged by color, material, and pattern, were not merely clothes. At least, they weren’t to her. Rather, the garments in her wardrobe represented who she was, at a certain time in her life, and who she was becoming. And of course, they all smelled of her, of her favorite perfume.

Her purchases, certainly, could be considered frivolous to some, but to her, the clothes in her wardrobe were not merely a haphazard collection of items. They were not randomly strewn together. Like the art she opted to spend money on, each garment was specifically chosen, with the color and texture of each piece very carefully considered. And of course, some of the clothing items had a profound meaning to her. She had developed, as ridiculous as it sounded, even to her, a certain sentimentality for a few pieces.

One, in particular, had provided her with a sense of protection in one of her darkest hours. It had been one of the only creature comforts she was allowed to hold onto in what she now referred to as her “unfortunate hospitalization,” and it had, in many ways, been her shield, keeping her warm as she paced up and down a cold hospital hallway. Alone.

Perhaps it was materialistic and superficial to think of a clothing garment that way, but she didn’t allow that to change her mindset. Rather, she much preferred it to the sad reality of that situation, which was that it had been the thing she clung to when she realized that so many people in her life did not actually care about her. It had been the item she wore as she waited, hour after hour, in that cold, white walled hospital, for someone, her mother, her friend, to rescue her, or at the very least, to visit.

Though of course, no one ever came. No one gallantly rode in to save the day, in spite of the fact that they were only an hour away. No one sat with her and told her everything would be okay. No one said they loved her. No, no one ever did for her what she would have done for them in that situation.

Instead, she had sat alone, waiting all day for a familiar face that would never show. And now, she valued that garment of clothing more than she did so many people in her life, and she made no apologies for it. After all, why should she be sorry, when they obviously were not?