Pretty Pink Shoes

Note, this was written four years ago when my kids were younger, now I'm a no-frills mother of three children under 12.

In my everyday life, I'm a no-frills mother of three children under the age of 7. Just your standard making lunches, breaking up toy wars, wondering when my last shower was kind of stuff. Some days, I really pull myself together with a shower and mascara and just as many days, I don't. I've learned to forgive myself for those days that I knowingly leave the house with a stained shirt, planning on blaming a recent cup of coffee for those unsightly blobs. Or the days that I can smell myself when the wind blows in the wrong direction.

I have one (maybe a few) indulgence though, that makes all the difference in the world. Nothing rare — just your standard shoe fetish. Like Clark Kent emerging as Superman, slipping on my new pink Stuart Weitzman sandles transforms me from domestic goddess, into Cleopatra, Grace Kelly and Princess Di, all rolled into one. I no longer walk — I glide. My posture improves. I'm the fantasy of every man, woman and child I pass. My sons tell me my shoes are beautiful and my daughter sneaks them into her room and attempts to break her ankle in them. Who can blame her?

I'm convinced that fabulous shoes have a potentially transformative power on the universe, and every time I look at them, they make me smile. Does it matter that when I wear them, my t-shirt states, "we like tha moon!"? or that I have retained a bit of morning cream cheese under my nail polish chipped pinky nail? No, my friends, once the leather soles connect to the floor and the heels click click click against the tile, it all fades away and I once again begin to channel Jackie O. I can almost feel the pillbox hat materialize on my head as I go to break up another fight over the latest McDonald's toy. Yes, yes, these shoes are self help books, therapy and anti-depressants all rolled into one. I may sleep in them tonight, just to start tomorrow off right. I'll fall asleep, smug with the knowledge that in my world of downwardly mobile breasts, lack of adult conversation and horror of all horrors, 2 minute showers, the powers that be, have blessed me with pretty toes, high arches and a closet full of pretty leather ego boosters. I now understand the phrase "mother's little helper." For each of us it's different. In the fifties, it was a good stiff cocktail, in the sixties, it was Prozac. For me, the 21st century has brought Stuart Weitzman. In my world, I'll take what I can get.