Armadura de ropa

A few weeks ago, my professor caught my eye while I was setting my things down before class started. "I loved what you said about armor yesterday," he said. "I told my wife about it; she was really impressed."

I thanked him. And as you can imagine, pretty psyched that he had taken note of what I said.

We'd been talking about ways of coping with difficult situations. He'd asked us what "refuge" we have for tough situations or how we address challenges.

My answer was that I have clothing that acts as armor that I don when I know I'll need a little extra strength to face the day. And I don't mean that I dress to the teeth with the latest fashion on the day I need to address something important. Nor do I mean that I put on my most intimidating face. When I don my armor, it's not to scare everyone else.

It's to bring out a little bit more strength from me.

My armor is simple things--some tshirts from the LT program, tshirts from my high school swim meets, the sweater I think I look particularly good in. The clothes tend to come from important parts of my life--moments of success, of good memories. Donning this armor, it feels like I'm able to bring a little of those good times with me into the tough times.

There are some days I wake up and I think to myself, "Yep, I'll need a little bit of the LT mindset with me today." or "I'd like to be reminded today of what I've learned from swimming the 500."

Going into this gap year thing, I'd always planned on adding to my collection of armor. This time in the form of rings. Not only are they slightly more versatile than tshirts, and I can wear them pretty much anywhere, they are less permanent than tattoos (still not planning on getting one, but I know there are people who like to commemorate important moments in their life with tattoos.) So throughout my time here I've kept my eyes out for the sort of rings I was looking for.

Finally, I bought the first ring of the trip, my Spain ring, a couple of weeks ago. I'd had in my mind an idea of what I wanted it to look like, inspired by a number of my camp friends, so I was lucky to find what I was looking for.

Already, I'm looking forward to pulling it out in the future, turning it around in my hands on a tough day, as a reminder of what I'm capable of.

What armor have you found over the years? What do you reach for or who do you go to when you need a little extra strength?