Big Blue — the story of my first winter coat

Jhadee Gordon
2 min readOct 9, 2020

Big Blue was my first winter coat. It was a baby blue bubble coat, with a hood that had fur trim, the fur trim was also blue. I wish I could find a picture of myself in said coat so you all can see how hideous it was.

As the “new girl” the worse thing I could do was wear that coat, I stuck out like a sore thumb in that thing. I’m pretty sure the kids on the bus and my neighborhood made fun of me for wearing that thing. I was an immigrant and this was my first experience with such cold weather. They had me questioning how warm I wanted to be.

My mother was the one that bought me that jacket. I’m not sure if she bought it or if someone gave it to her as a gift for me but I was stuck with that jacket for my entire first winter. I really despised that jacket. As soon as I got to school I took it off and once the bell rang, it was stuffed in the locker until the end of the day.

Luckily for me Virginia isn’t as cold as other parts of the U.S. so such a heavy jacket isn’t needed most winter months. But did my mother think that…NOOO! She insisted I wear that coat everytime I stepped out the house, even when it was 55 degrees. Her excuse was, “you not accustom to this weather. You don’t want to get sick.” At 14 years old I didn’t care about being sick, I cared about fitting in and looking “normal” like everyone else. I was probably the only person at my school with such a big jacket. Everyone else wore, north faces, or cool leather jackets, cute peacoats,…and here I was in my large blue coat trying to fit in and make friends.

Here are my current thoughts about big blue

  • The jacket wasn’t even that ugly, the color just made it more noticable
  • The worse thing I could have did was worry about how “fashionable” or “trendy” I was. I was warm and that’s all that should matter. Looking back there were probably so many children that would have treated that jacket better than I did
  • I wish I had that coat this winter cause oh boy is it BRICK! It was in the single digits one week. I miss you big blue, I’m sorry

For all my immigrants, feel free to comment or email me — jhadeeg28@gmail.com — about your first winter experience or how you felt about your first winter coat.

All my non-immigrants, how have y’all dealt with this weather your entire lives, I need answers!

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Jhadee Gordon

Stories about my life as a Guyanese in America dealing with everyday life. Open and honest opinion on topics in my daily life