ATTENTION: I wrote this on March 2nd, but am just now able to sit still long enough to post it.
Yesterday was the first day of clothing. Already liberating. I think finally, at 35, I have found my sense of style. Additionally, this liberation has a 2two-fold benefit: #1- less time in closet pondering what to wear and #2- less money spent on things that don’t fall into my new style category.
I chose nude patent leather 3 ½ inch heels as one of my shoe choices. This is an attempt to be more feminine for my husband and myself. I am a 6-foot, 18-year military veteran who played basketball in college (not quite the ingredients for sophistication and grace….)
So my idea was to wear the heels every Tuesday and Thursday when my boys are in school as those are the days I primarily sit and work at the computer.
Alas, Day 1 (a Thursday) did not really go as I thought it would.
Jeans, long sleeved white Tshirt and my nude heels. OK? OK.
That was an absolutely appropriate outfit to drop my boys off at school- Las Vegas sees high heels all the time. Also, fine to wear to Megan’s house for our 7 meeting and discussion of clothing month.
An errand to WalMart to pick up children’s craft supplies? Not as cool. What?!! WalMart is a green light- all things are a go there…..am I right?
At 11:30 am as I entered WalMart, I realized that my time limit for high heel shoes had been exceeded. (I put them on at 7:30 am) Please know- I am a stay-at-home mom and my heels nor legs get that kind of action very often. As I attempt to maintain balance and poise, I pass by a man in his late 30s with his 5 or 6 year old son. The man is smiling at me while the boy looks around- I get nervous and embarrassed as I am out of my element in these heels. So I glance to and fro- not wanting to make eye contact, but finally look at both of them, smile and say, “hi”. I walk on by and I hear the man tell his son, “You see her? You don’t mess with those kind of women because those long legs could get you into trouble.”
Now, now, I thought this man new the kind of person I was. Didn’t he see my green and gold St Patrick’s Day nail polish, the children’s craft supplies in my hands, the angry birds stickers all over my purse and my custodial set of keys on my carabineer with a remote control to my mini van on it? I thought he knew… I thought he knew I was a mom on a mission for a craft project. Guess not.
I got a couple of other looks and felt uncomfortable. I guess I got what I indirectly asked for- attention, but that was definitely not my purpose. So of course I tried to up my kindness factor in case God wanted to act somehow through me. I offered a woman and her son to go in front of me in line, I smiled and made eye contact with many people, and finally asked to help someone in a motorized shopping cart if I could assist them getting items off the top shelf (my personal favorite tall person move…)
Then, I got back into the car and drove off to get gas. On the 2 minute drive to Sam’s gas station, a song came on the radio ad the only thing I heard was:
“When people look at you, do they see Jesus?”
Well, Emily, do they? How about that man with his son? What about it Emily?
