I was about to begin my 7th-grade year. Normally, I loved back-to-school shopping. I loved the smell of fresh crayons and pencils. I loved choosing my binders and notebooks and labeling, sorting, and organizing everything neatly into my backpack. But this would be the first year I remember also being excited about what I would be wearing to school on that first day. I was really looking forward to seeing the friends I had gotten to know the year before. To a 12-year-old girl, friends are everything. Fitting in with those friends is everything. So I had to be wearing the right clothes. My mom instinctively knew this and together we had picked out a pair of Reebok sneakers for me from a mail-order catalog. It was the first time I had ever been able to choose my own sneakers and have them be a name brand. I was ecstatic. A few days after my mom had put in the order she got a call that made my heart sink--they were out of stock of her sneaker and wanted to know if she wanted to ...
THE JOURNEY TO A SIMPLER LIFE