Shoes

See these shoes? These adorably cute, seemingly perfect shoes? I love, love, love these shoes. These shoes got a girl who couldn't care less about shoes to get really, really excited about shoes. They look great, especially with fitted jeans and a crisp white shirt. There's just one downfall. They don't fit. At. All.

Sigh.

I wore them to work once. I convinced myself that the Perfect Shoes just needed to be broken in a little, and then we'd be the Perfect Match, this girl and her shoes. I smiled every time someone complimented me on my groovy little mary-janes. I was the only one who knew that I was dying to take them off and throw them out a window and perhaps run over them with my car. Twice.

They have taken up residence in my bedroom floor. I guess I've convinced myself that one day I'm going to wake up and they're magically going to fit perfectly. Except, of course, they aren't.

So why all this talk about a pair of ill-fitting shoes? Because, unfortunately, they are the perfect metaphor for the way I have lived my life.

I have stayed in jobs I hated, jobs that made me cry when the alarm beeped in the morning, because I thought it should be the right job. They certainly made me look good to the outside world (or did they? Can I ever really know that? I digress...). You know, just being able to say that's where I worked or being able to add it to my resume. And of course, there are many people out there in the world working the same job, and they were happy, fulfilled. Surely there must be something wrong with me. Surely I was missing something. Truth was, those shoes might have fit other people perfectly, but not me.

I have gotten into, and stayed in, relationships that absolutely made me miserable. My god, D was a cute pair of shoes. A devastatingly cute, sucessful, intelligent, "perfect" pair of shoes. And D came so close to fitting me that I convinced myself that he did. I spent a long time being really happy on the surface while cringing inside. I changed many things, many this-is-what-makes-me-who-I-am things, to make those shoes fit. They never did. Not only did I spend many months mourning the shoes, mostly I (am I really admitting this?) mourned the way they made me feel. Cute, successful, The Perfect Gal for The Perfect Guy.

I've worked jobs I hated, stayed in relationships I hoped would eventually bring me happiness, tended to friendships that were never meant to be, gone on diets to make my body acceptable to another, tied myself to religious beliefs that I thought made me a better person. I've worn too many uncomfortable pairs of shoes, put myself into so many roles that didn't fit, spent way too much time doing the things I thought would make me look good.

And in doing so, I have forgotten that I am whole, complete, and beautiful without any of that. I've forgotten to ask the Universe for a pair of shoes that fit me perfectly.

Until today.

And until those shoes arrive, and they absolutely will, I'm going to revel in the decadent feeling of going barefoot. ;-)