Who You Are at the Buckle

I would walk past the entrance to The Buckle quickly.

The Buckle sold expensive jeans that all the popular kids wore at school and I knew for sure I didn’t belong there. I imagined that all the store employees and customers inside could immediately detect that I was an outsider, that most of the time I didn’t even have enough money in my pocket to buy a cheap burrito in the food court. 

Belonging to The Buckle 

My heart would race as I walked by, afraid to even look inside, so I would furtively glance out of the corner of my eye to see if I could glean some intel from my quick walk past the store.

Who was in there? 

What were they doing? 

What kind of life did people who wore the right kind of jeans even live? 

I couldn’t begin to imagine. 

But today was different.

I’d spent the whole summer mowing lawns for my parents and grandparents with the pushmower. We had acres to cover for both properties so this was no small task. Slowly, but surely, the money I had saved added up and along with a great tan, I had finally saved up enough money to buy something special. My mom took me to North Park Mall. I couldn’t wait to find something!

I didn’t intend for that thing to be jeans, but I figured I had enough money in my pocket to hold my head up high and actually walk into the store that seemed so unapproachable. 

“Hi I’m Stacy, can I help you?” the store’s pastel pink-wearing salesfloor attendant greeted me. with perfect glossy lips and a big toothy smile. 

“No, I’m okay…I’m just looking.”

I was immediately uncomfortable and wondered if she could hear the signs of my not belonging in my voice.

Instead, she seemed focused on my face and immediately offered, “Can I show you some of our latest jeans on the jeans wall? We have some new ones in that I think you’ll love!”

The “Jeans Wall”

Stacy seemed like a happy person and I couldn’t help but want to keep her that way. 

Until that moment I didn’t even realize there was something called a “jeans wall” and I was picking up insights into this new Buckle World fast. Stacy was so excited and I figured that someone who belonged in The Buckle lifestyle would say “yes” to the jeans wall without hesitation. So even though I wanted to melt through the floor and disappear, I excitedly answered “Yes! That sounds great!” as if there were nothing more important in my life at that moment than the new jeans on The Buckle’s jeans wall. 

Stacy walked me over to the wall, which was really just row after row of folded-up jeans ordered by style and size. She turned to me beaming and asked what size I wore. 

I froze. 

Shame flooded my body. 

At 14-years-old, I was already 5’8 and often told I looked like I was 17. I wasn’t sure exactly what size I wore, to be honest. But I didn’t want to sound like a child and answer that my mom always brought my jeans.

I was positive my size, whatever it was, was too big, though. 

I tried to laugh like it was no big deal. 

“Oh, haha! I have no idea! I can’t remember the last time I bought jeans…hmmmm…I don’t know!”

Stacy looked at me weirdly. I was curious if the jig was up and she’d figured out that I was conning her about being the kind of person who bought jeans at The Buckle.

She scanned my body and looked down at my hips. All traces of her smile disappeared and a concerned look replaced it. Her forehead crinkled up and she said, hesitatingly, “Well, let’s pull a couple of sizes for you and see what works.” 

Stacy didn’t seem convinced that she’d find something that worked.

She found the largest sizes on the jeans wall and pulled down a pair of jeans with a carefully designed button-up fly with a foldover front and pink patches with a heart design sewn in behind holes in the acid-washed denim. The Pepe (or were they Girbaud?) jeans were completely tricked-out and horrible. 

“These are super cool,” Stacy said, handing me the jeans. “I can’t WAIT to see you in them!”

“Are You Okay In There?”

I walked into the dressing room and as the door closed I wanted to cry. 

Finally, I was alone.

How did I end up here? And why? Why did I come into this stupid store in the first place? Ruddy-faced and ashamed I just wanted to be okay, which at that moment meant being anywhere else but where I was. 

It was obvious I didn’t belong. And yet here I was…in the belt buckle of the beast…looking at a stack of denim that I didn’t want and had no idea of whether or not I could even fit into. 

What would happen if I couldn’t fit into any of them? Even the largest size? What would that mean when I came out? What would I say? What would they say?

I pulled up the largest size and tried to put it on. At first, it didn’t seem as if it would pull up over my thighs. I pulled a little harder.

>>>Knock-knock-knock-knock-knock

A quick knocking suddenly radiated throughout the dressing room.

“You okay in there?” Stacy chirped. “Do you need any other sizes?”

I rolled my eyes. She knew there were no other sizes aside from smaller ones. Why was she asking? 

I stood there and tried to answer as nonchalantly as possible. 

“Oh, yeah. Everything’s cool. Thanks!”

What was I going to DO?!?

I pulled as hard as I could, the sides of the denim scraping and pulling against the skin on my legs, and painfully I got them up. I could button them! Yes! And I stood and looked at myself in the mirror. 

They were terrible. 

I was 5’8 at age 14 and staring at myself in The Buckle mirror and all I could see was “not good enough.” 

>>>Knock-knock-knock-knock-knock

“How are you doing in there? Wanna come out and see in the big mirror?”

“No!” my mind immediately responded. 

Did I want to come out of the dressing room and parade in front of everyone else in the store so they could laugh at me and see how much I didn’t belong? No. No, I didn’t. 

At this point, I figured everyone there understood I didn’t belong so we should all just move along with the charade and get it over with.

“They’re awesome!” I cried out, lying. 

“Let’s see them!” Stacy countered. 

I sucked in my breath (and my stomach) and walked out of the dressing room. 

Her smile was waiting, already appropriately bright and unwavering. 

“Ooh, they look soooo cool!” she cooed. 

I smiled and looked at Stacy to see if I could catch any truth leaking from the corners of her expression. 

Nope. 

Her expression was frozen. Determined. I imagined Stacy worked on commission. 

I smiled and said, “Yup! These are the ones.”

“Great! Can I pull anything else for you? A sweatshirt to go with the jeans?” 

“Nope! These will be enough.”

I walked back into the dressing room and sighed. The end was near. Thank God. 

A Plastic Bag Doesn’t Define Who You Are

I don’t remember much about what was said during the actual transaction of cash. What I do remember is thinking of all the sweat and long hours spent mowing my grandparents’ lawn and my own lawn and how it hadn’t amounted to much more than this stupid pair of jeans that I already hated and was buying anyway. 

There was a lot of hate in that moment. 

I hated the jeans. I hated the salesperson. I hated The Buckle. But most of all, I hated myself. 

As I walked out of the store, I put a grin on my face like I was on top of the world and not like I had just made the most foolish purchase of my life to that point. I was now a person who shopped at The Buckle. I even had the bag that said so. I wanted everyone to see that I could carry that bag. 

That bag meant I could fit into those sizes. That bag meant I could afford those things. That bag meant I was good enough. 

Except it didn’t. Not really. No plastic bag could really say any of that and make it true. And I knew that, too. 

I wore those jeans to school. They always made me feel bad about myself. Of course, in junior high, feeling bad about oneself isn’t hard to do. 

Lessons Learned at The Buckle

But, I learned a lot from that experience. I think of that story when I think about my feelings regarding a number of issues we face as adults.

How I feel about sales. 

How I feel about money. 

How I feel about assumptions. 

But also, how I feel about myself. 

In sales, there is never anything wrong with stopping along the way and asking yourself, “Why am I doing this? Is this really what I want? Is this good for me?”

Recently, I was in a discussion where the other party had everything to gain and wasn’t offering much in the way of why I might want to take part in their plan. 

They even suggested, in a not-so-subtle way, that what I was already doing in my business wasn’t good enough but that they could help me reach that glorious success that had thus far escaped me. All I had to do was help them out with what they wanted.

For free, of course.

And I thought of the Brass Buckle and its lessons. 

Your Worth at the Core

I would never make a decision I didn’t think was good for me in order to create some facade of being worthy to another party. I am not 14, I am 44 and I am doing just fine, thank you.

The sweat and hard work I put into my business are worth something and I know it.  

And should anyone try to make someone else feel “less than” for not immediately doing what they want them to do, well, one has to wonder what the motivation is in the first place.

I’m convinced everyone comes across their version of this story at some point in their lives. My hope is that when they do, they learn from it, too, and stare right back recognizing it when it appears again in another form.

Understanding your worth should rest right in the core of who you are. Right there at the buckle. 

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