I fell in love the moment I laid eyes on them. As soon as I slid them on my feet, when they fit perfectly and made me feel spectacular, I knew we were destined to be together. What can I say: I am a closet polygamist - that is, I am in love with a wardrobe full of shoes.
Why is it so easy to let this material possessions induce feelings of lust and love, but so close to impossible for another person make me feel the same way? After all, shoes do pinch my feet and give me blisters and heartache; how is it any different from being with a man?
When my shoes hurt my feet and leave me soaking them in a tub of hot water, I don't harbor any ill will towards them. I don't pitch them into the garbage, leave them at the curb just because we had one bad night together. While my shoes neither talk back to me, nor have reciprocal feelings, nor satisfy my soul for an extended period (they are, after all, only material), I think there are some lessons in love I can learn from my feelings towards my feet's adornments.
Perhaps it is simply the physical appearance (of my shoes or a man) that starts moving things down a path that might end in love, that gets a foot in the door, and then the rest will follow. Admittedly, there is something superficial about love at first sight; but being physically attracted to someone is just as important as being emotionally, mentally and spiritually attracted to him / her.
But love at first sight is something the cynic in me thinks was an invention of romantic comedies starring Doris Day and Rock Hudson. Yet, love at first sight is something I want desperately to believe in. It is romantic and story book and, after all - important to a single income young businesswoman - time efficient. If all I had to do was cast a sideways glance at someone and wham! bam! thank you ma'am! I was in love, sign me up. I'm a busy gal, and as my mother reminded me last night, my biological clock is ticking.
At my ballroom dance lesson a few weeks ago (while my back was aching from three-inch ballroom stilettos), one of the female instructors asked me how I wanted to look and feel when dancing. I was telling her that I want to be independent and confident when she cut me off.
“You shouldn't worry about looking confident,” she said. “I can already tell that you are. You should be vulnerable. Let your emotion show.”
Vulnerable is a term that has been erased from my personal lexicon over the last decade of love and heartache. I have ceased sticking my neck out because of the risk of having my head cut off, my heart cut out. Simply, on dates, I am - much to my disappointment - an ice princess in an aloof way.
The day my mother and father met, legend goes, my father was able to make himself vulnerable. Standing at a towering 6'6”, my father was working as a bouncer at a country western bar (a point that still makes me cringe a little). My mother and some of her girlfriends stopped by the bar for a round after league bowling. After she entered the bar, my father thought to himself, “That is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. I am going to introduce myself.”
That he did. Over 30 years of marriage and five kids grown, they are still going strong.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
I was not at the scene of their initial meeting; I did not talk to either one of them during their courtship; I do not know if it was love at first sight, but I know that according to lore, my father made a grand gesture characteristic of love at first sight. I wonder if he looks back on it and thinks he was in love at first sight, bowling shoes and all.
Apparently, vulnerability pulses in my blood.
Yet, each and every time I meet someone, my vulnerability diminishes when I feel the defensive walls involuntarily go up around me. I try to be optimistic going into dates, but sooner rather than later, he says something that turns me the wrong way and I close off. Experience has taught me this Pavlovian reaction.
In my deciding way, therefore, I have decided that the next date I go on, I am going to make a conscious attempt to let down my guard, be a little less than hyper-critical, accept 'slightly flawed' and try to see the good in the person instead of thinking that he has his own agenda and commitment issues.
May I be vulnerable.
May I be open to trying new things.
May I walk a few miles in another man's shoes.
May I be open to feeling love in that first instant, even if only in retrospect.
• "A Single Serving" appears second and fourth Mondays every month, exclusively in Lumino Magazine. E-mail Melissa at m.koss@yahoo.com.
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Connection
Written by Guest on 2006-09-13 14:26:33
It's not very often one reads about dating, womens shoes and men all in the same article. Where does the woman get this stuff? |
Written by Guest on 2006-09-14 20:59:36
 Great article. I loved it. Of course I am your mother. |
grandma said look for the good
Written by Guest on 2006-09-14 20:59:47
Your grandmother always looked at the good in everyone. She was able to overlook the bad and only see and talk about the good. She never thought that anyone had a negative agenda. She was special in that way.
Uncle phil loved the "ice princess line.
aunt judy |
Inspirational/Thought provoking
Written by Guest on 2006-09-16 11:53:35
javascript:ac_smilie(' ')
????What happens when the shoes wear out?
Vulnerable but not blinded by the light or the fit!
Remember when you find the right shoes keep dancing!!!!!
Aunt Colleen
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Written by Guest on 2006-09-18 09:47:03
I have really enjoyed reading this column. |
