Me And My Chilean Cardigan Down By The Schoolyard

Another tough departure from my wardrobe happened two weeks ago: I gave away my light blue, zip-up cardigan with the thin navy blue stripe across the upper ribcage. I bought it nearly nine years ago in a Santiago department store, either Fallabella or Almacenes Paris, and wore it very often for a long time. In fact, I wore it so frequently that at my first reporting job, when my co-workers created a fake front page to say farewell, the cardigan made several appearances. I mistakenly put it in the washing machine once, which stretched it out, and with time, the sweater became so stretched that its waistline became amorphous and mushy. Then, the zipper completely broke so it was essentially an undefined piece of wool that still hung around my arms and shoulders well but flailed everywhere below that. Despite its poor condition, I brought it to Boomerang's rather than put it in the trash. I couldn't bear to do it myself. Like those great brown Reeboks that I bought in Santiago, the cardigan's small details were strong enough that I haven't found a similar sweater here. I had to hang on to it as long as I could.

Above is a photo of the sweater.