Jennifer Trustem

From Trash to Pirate Treasure

As a woman in my mid-30s, I have a lot of the things that often come with growing up: A job, an apartment, and a pile of clothes that have just one or two things wrong with them. Growing up has meant more working than playing, and skewing my spending more in the direction of bills and responsibilities, rather than toys or the adventures that I dreamed about growing up. As a child, my dress-up bin included outfits to help me imagine myself as pirates, princesses, animals, astronauts, and everything combined and in between. Nothing gave me more joy than taking a simple scarf and tying it around my waist to hold a paper towel roller sword, or putting on bulky clothing to simulate the protective gear of a space explorer.