Column by J1 Reporter Bella Beck

It’s a Thursday morning and you wake up at 6 a.m. and lay in bed for a few minutes, scrolling through your phone. You finally gain the strength to get up and immediately walk straight to your closet. You stare into the abyss of mix-matched clothes and begin to stress. You can choose between five pairs of scratchy jeans and 15 shirts that are too tight to wear all day. What are you going to wear to school today?

On the other hand, I wake up at 6:45 and lay in bed also scrolling through my phone. When I finally get out of bed, I grab a clean version of same clothes from the day before, throw them on, and call it good. So what am I going to wear to school today, you ask? Today, I am wearing one of my three blue plaid skirts and blue Marian polos. I also wore that yesterday, and I’ll wear it again tomorrow. It’s as simple as that.

I am not saying that free choice of clothing is bad; clothes are a wonderful way of expressing yourself, and I enjoy doing it in my free time on the weekends and after school. But when it comes to teenagers who hate unnecessary stress, uniforms are the best option.

My sense of style is a big part of how I live my life. So when I have a limited amount of time to get ready, I stress. When I wake up at 6:45 a.m. and leave for school at 7:10, I never have enough time to plan an outfit. But I wake up at 6:45 on purpose. I don’t need time to plan my outfit; I’ll just wear the same thing I wear every day.

I get to school at 7:30, 20 minutes before school starts. Everyone is matching and looks cozy. I feel cozy. My pullover Marian crew neck keeps me warm all day and my plaid skirt is so easy to move in. it is not scratchy or too tight. It is just right. I enjoy my day and don’t worry about how my outfit compares to others’ outfits. They are all wearing the same exact thing.

I get home at 3:20 p.m. I begin my history homework in my uniform, I eat snacks in my uniform. I don’t dare to take it off. I often leave it on way past 6 p.m. when I eat dinner.

I finish the last of my physics homework at 10:30 p.m. and start to watch Netflix. At this point, I am so comfy that if I changed into anything else, my outfit wouldn’t live up to the uniform. So at 11 p.m. at the last minute, right before I hop in my bed, I finally change into pajamas. 

I wake up again at 6:45 on a Friday morning and repeat my process from the day before. I put my new, clean uniform on, brush my teeth, grab my backpack, and leave. I go through my day once again in my favorite Marian uniform.