​Just Wear The Hat By Robin Morris

I am so scared to wear this hat. Maybe scared isn’t the right word. But when it comes to hats, I feel like I need a reason. I can’t wear a hat without some sort of validation. Hats need a purpose, right? Visors keep the sun out. Baseball caps support your favorite team. Snapbacks are for douche-bros. Floppy straw hats are for girls at the beach who obviously don’t sweat as much as I do. I want to be a hat girl. I strive to be a hat girl. But for some reason, I’ve never let myself become one.
 
Last summer, I bought a hat. It’s the hat everyone has these days—one of those black felt, wide-brimmed, Coachella-chic, witchy hats. When these hats first piqued my interest—back in 2014, I admired from afar—so sure I could never pull off the look myself. They were for models, Jenners and those Instagram-famous girls who look 27 but are actually 14.  Black hats were for the California girls that do cool things like romp around the desert eating In-and-Out burgers, always smiling because their metabolisms are so fast they’d win an Olympic gold medal in the 100-meter dash.
 
I grew up with the belief that there is a time period in a girl’s life where she cannot wear at hat. Maybe it had something to do with the combination of school rules and self esteem issues, but I didn’t wear hats from ages 14 to 18. Plus, my mom always told me I looked great in hats, so naturally I avoided them at all costs. Once, when I was junior in high school, I wore a visor to keep the sun out of my eyes while playing a tennis match. I was so self-conscious the entire game I ended up double faulting on every single serve. While it may have had less to do with the visor and more with my athletic ability, I still blame the hat.
 
After finishing my sophomore year of college, I made a promise to myself: I was going to be a hat girl. I was now twenty, I drank Pinot Grigio and I had taken public transportation to the city multiple times. If that didn’t qualify me to be a hat-wearer, I don’t know what would.

I put on every black hat I came across that summer (which would probably explain the lice! Kidding.) Yet each time I tried one on, thoughts crept into my mind as I looked in the mirror:

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• Twelve dollars for a hat? That’s like a decent six pack right there.
• Where will you even wear it?
• A music festival?
• It’s not like you’re going to a music festival.
• You probably never will.
• And realistically, if you were going to a festival, you would probably lose the hat in some mosh pit or whatever they do at those EDM shows.
• Or someone would just steal it.
• You have to have an occasion to wear a black felt hat.
• You can’t just wake up one morning, put on a black hat and go to Wal-Mart.
• And what about on a windy day? Are you just supposed to duct-tape the thing to your head?
•  Also, black felt is such heavy and hot material; you’ll probably sweat right through it.
•  Has anyone ever smelled a sweat-soaked felt hat before?
•  I bet it’s more pungent than old soccer cleats.​

​The list went on. While I came up with every reason under the sun not to buy one, I spent the majority of the summer hatless. But I couldn’t escape the black hat because frankly, I wanted one. On one of the last days of my summer, I was in the mall with a couple friends. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a black hat sitting among a pile of straw hats. I put it on and it fit like a glove. I walked around the store with it— eyeing myself in mirrors and other reflective surfaces. But then I would take it off and mull over all the excuses I had to convince myself not to buy it. But it was 40% off. And it fit so well. I vowed I’d become a hat girl, right? So I bought it.
 
Fast forward nine months, give or take. I haven’t worn the hat. Turns out, becoming a hat girl takes more than owning a hat. I think I can be a hat girl. A couple weeks ago, I bought a khaki felt hat. I don’t know why I did it, I was drawn to it. I am becoming a hat girl that never wears hats, but just collects them.  
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