writing – That Lady Cat

I have too many boots. I mean, I don’t think I have too many boots (I love boots). But you might think I have too many boots. Kim K. would pity cry if I told her how many pairs of boots I have.

I’ve been trying to downsize lately. Going to my closet and peeling out garments that’ve seen their day. Or maybe they’ve never even had their day yet, but for whatever reason they cannot be a part of my collection today. Whoosh!

It’s emotional going through my closet, as I would suspect it is for most people. These are items I’ve worn over the moon, through grief and heartbreak. I remember going through my dad’s half of the closet after he had passed away. I cried the whole time. I mean, I could see him in this stuff; someone prying their grubby fingers through racks at the Salvation Army wouldn’t know a thing about it.

I have “memory dresses” – dresses I’ve worn certain places and remember fondly or maybe dresses a certain someone has gotten me. These are never touched. Everything else is fair game.

Today, it was the boots’ turn. I have a certain brand of boot I love to buy. It’s one of my, shall we say, pêchés mignons. (though I desperately wish I did, I don’t speak French; I literally just googled ‘guilty pleasures in French’, and that’s the first thing that came up).

The way I feel in these boots is the way boots should make you feel. The way the first person who tried on a pair of good boots said, “oh yeah, these.” They are at once squishy and supportive, in all the right ways. Every pair I own was purchased with conclusive determination and a borderline irrational level of excitement.

They aren’t inexpensive, so I have to find them places, either online or in-store, on sale. I’ve gotten some really good deals on a few, and this always makes me feel like punching air. Still, I have a few pairs tucked underneath my bed in a super junky shoe organizer (which I would give zero stars on Amazon, BTW), and they haven’t been worn much at all. Maybe I could try and sell them somewhere? I haven’t yet had the chance to visualize myself in them and form a real connection – plus I could use the money.

So I get out this stupid lumpy organizer which makes the shoes fall everywhere inside, and I start trying them on. I put on two different boots to compare and glance at myself in the mirror. At first I’m unsurprised with who I see, a nonverbal groan. It’s just: that’s me, I’m there, fine. I work from home – I haven’t showered or put on makeup in four days. I’m wearing yoga pants that look furry and a loose Gap t-shirt I got for $3 at Goodwill.

But after, that feeling is replaced by another, almost bizarre emotion. When it comes I reprimand myself, then I volley it and finally I let myself just feel it. That feeling of being sexy. But not sexy for you, sexy for me type sexy? That one we do our very best to suppress, because the media spells out beauty in the form of sweeping, minimizing generalities? (Yeah, these boots are THAT GOOD).

So I get out the ol’ iPhone and snap a pic; I mean, this is a rare occurrence. Dirty pores, comfy clothes, two different shoes…SEXY? This had to be documented.

And then, the onslaught:

Ugh, gross. Ew. Uh, no.

My arms, what? WHY am I not going to that class?

Don’t smile, that looks weird.

Suck your stomach in.

Don’t bend that way.

Change your shirt.

Finally, I decided that any pictures with the full me, were totally dunzo. DEL-ETE.

Which, in some ways was helpful, because the pictures I was left with were pretty much just pictures of my legs/feet. Oh and the boots. And that was the initial goal, right? To compare said boots and choose one based on an impression? SPOILER: I’m keeping both.

I’m keeping both pairs, and I’m still wondering why humans (myself included) don’t let themselves feel silently (or even audibly, go you) good about themselves without shame.

Feel shamelessly sexy! (Especially in those makeup-less, furry-pants-wearing moments.) It means you have other things to do, and you love your pets. So sue you.

Hi, this is me at Ravinia circa three months ago. I was happy and drinking lots of red wine. My name is Lauren, and I’m just a girl/lady/woman/lass trying to make her own distinct impression on something or whatever (insert: Gwen Stefani blasting estrogen into a microphone). I’m a huge Trekkie, as in Captain Kathryn Janeway is my fucking spirit animal. Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation Starship Voyager 2020. I love flowers and artistic expression in all forms. I really need a pair of cute rainboots, but I can’t seem to find any. So if you happen to know the kind of cute rainboots I’m talking about, please hit me up.

I get down a lot, and not in the sense of like boogying at a night club with gold chains or whatever more like my anxiety and depression make me feel like garbage. Like I’m pretty much leading a meaningless or incoherent life. A misplaced little dot. I worry that I’m not good enough or pretty enough or popular enough or accomplished enough. I worry I’m too old, too late, too anything, really. I spend a lot of time in that mindset, and it weighs on me hard.

But I like to write. And it helps me tackle difficult experiences in an intentional and meaningful way. I’ve always liked to turn stuff into words. Ever since I was in the third grade and had to write about going to the Olive Garden. Or sperm whales. I get simultaneous satisfaction and comfort from words. But, perhaps more importantly, I go through things, right, like life things, and I think I’m so alone. What’s neat about being human is that chances are there’s someone out there that knows exactly what your experience is like. The reason I love art is that it’s this glorious chance to bridge those little divides. Writing helps me to bear the regular awfulness of the world and connect with people. Hi, friend.

Disclaimer: This blog won’t all be about sad or anxious things, I promise. I have some other topics beyond sadness and self-loathing that might be of interest. I’m keeping this blog so that I can force myself to write about happenings in my life, good and bad; however, it’s important to remember the good things, specifically. These occurrences of joy often just float by unnoticed. I’ll try to catch and write about them as often as I can.

So here we go.

But actually hold on a sec. I don’t want to get into, like, deep stuff or whatever right away. I want to give you some semblance of what to expect. You’re my reader and I’m new, it’s only fair. So I think I’m just going to list some things I might talk about in this blog in no particular order. I’m a little unorganized at this point, but I promise I’ll get it together. ish. Things:

-how much I love Star Trek (i just watched an episode so it’s fresh in my brain)
-my cats (they are being totes cute right now)
-movies, definitely movies
-writing, ideas about process and reflection on my own
-how the human race should be more like Starfleet
-feeling uncomfortable in various social situations
-but also wanting to be a person that bursts out in song in the middle of the street
-music music music
-shows and performances
-this one time I met my idol David Sedaris at a book signing (and insert story)
-how social media is…interesting
-Oak Park, Illinois – represent
-disney WORLD OMG…definitely disney world. but not so much that you’ll be weirded out if for some reason you don’t like happiness
-random topics that just float their way through my corpus callosum
-feeling bad about myself for no apparent reason
-fears/failure
-creating things and the delight it brings me

So I hope you find some or any of that interesting and will thus tune in to my little corner of this earth. It would be real nice to have you along on ma journey.

Tag: writing

These boots were made for

This is me