Went Shopping With My Dad

Went shopping with my father today. Nothing fancy. We needed a few basics, so we stopped by one of those big discount stores.

We always end up talking about clothes, even if that’s not what we came for.

I usually check for decent brands on sale. Not designer stuff, just things that last — good fit, good fabric. I keep them for years. Some shirts I’ve had since college. They get softer, more familiar. I feel weird throwing them out, even when they’re on their last leg.

My dad’s the total opposite. He heads straight for the multipack tees or whatever’s on the rack — same color, same style, same size. He doesn’t even try them on. Just grabs five or six, no hesitation.

“Don’t you feel weird tossing stuff out so fast?” I asked him today.

He gave this half-shrug, like it didn’t even require thought.
“It’s just stuff. You wear it, and when it’s done, it’s done.”

That line stuck with me.
Because for me, it’s not just stuff.

I look at a jacket and remember when I wore it on my first day at work.
A hoodie reminds me of the road trip with my friends.
A shirt that’s gone thin at the elbows — I wore that on the day I moved into my first apartment.

It’s not like I’m sentimental all the time, but I attach memories to things without meaning to. I hang onto them, patch them, fold them away like I might need to remember something.

Meanwhile, my dad? He travels light. No fuss. No clutter.

There’s something kind of admirable about that.
Like he’s not weighed down by objects, or nostalgia. He doesn’t waste time debating which T-shirt to keep. He just replaces, moves on.

I think we just operate on different rhythms.
He moves through life by function. I move through it by memory.

Neither is better. But today, standing in that aisle — me checking care labels, him tossing shirts into the cart — it hit me how far apart our habits are.

And how quietly those habits say something about who we are.

We didn’t talk much after that. Drove home with the windows cracked, radio low.

But I keep thinking about that shrug.
“It’s just stuff.”

Maybe it is.
Maybe that’s why I keep so much of it around.