An Ode to the North Face Backpack

As back to school season comes around in full swing, I am reminded of my years of “first days of school.” While I have grown and changed immensely throughout these formative years, something has remained consistent for a big chunk of this time. What you may ask? My North Face backpack. 

I recently retired my almost 15-year-old Northface that was passed down to me from my brother. In the 2010s, a North Face backpack was the bag to have if you wanted to “fit in” at a south shore Staten Island middle school. Our currency? The colorful zipper attachments which we traded with our friends during lunch time. The pockets held my sour patch flavored

gum, colorful pens, and other brightly colored supplies that I couldn't wait to pick out from the Staples on Richmond Ave that has since closed its doors. 

I inherited my North Face from my brother once he went to high school. I was in 7th grade at the time and welcomed the sleek and practical bag that carried all of my heavy books with the strong supportive back and durable straps. As a unique kid who liked to experiment with fashion, this bag was the only aspect of my ensemble that linked me with my peers, clashing greatly with my flower crowns and Steve Madden platform sandals that I saved all my birthday money to purchase (that are also still alive and well, if I might add).

This bag followed me through four stages of my education: middle school, high school, undergrad, and then my first year of law school. It carried me from American History to AP Art, Gothic Lit, and all the way to first-year doctrinals. It was my bag-of-choice for traveling abroad, joining me on multiple Euro-summers, island vacations with my family, and local roadtrips. This bag saw the world with me, held books that contained the stories of the world, and means the world to me now that I look back at all of the memories I had while going about my day-to-day routine. From pen explosions, to spilled salad dressing, and polluted rainwater as I waited for the bus on stormy days, the fabric tells the story of every devoted student: progress waits for no one. I grew up with this bag, and grew out of it as heavy legal textbooks wore away at its bottom, forcing me to retire it once and for all. 

While cleaning out my possessions from the inside pockets, I found crumbled up gum wrappers, grains of sand that collected at the bottom, rounded-edge Charming Chatter business cards that I ordered five years ago on Vistaprint with a coupon code from Honey, band-aids I kept “just in case,” a demolished Nature Valley bar that better resembled granola fit for a yogurt bowl. 

The rips and stains and broken pieces shed light on my coming-of age story, memorializing these years in a single bag, a sarcophagus of my adolescence. I sat in the library with this bag, struggling to understand Regents topics (remember those?), studying for the SAT, LSAT, law school midterms and finals. As I look back now, I treasure those stages of my life because it all got me to where I am today. As I enter a new chapter, with my new black North Face backpack, my only hope is that I will continue to grow, see the world, and remain curious about all there is to learn and experience. Thank you, North Face, for a job well done.