The Passion and Pain

   The pirates wore them, Julia Roberts kept hers up with safety pins, even cats have worn them.  I've worn them all my life.  My first pair, I wore with a cowgirl dress.  As a young teen, my mother found me a pair at the local thrift store.  They were tan, lace up, with chunky heels.  I had to put tissue in the toe for them to fit, but I loved them.
   In the military, I wore them for two decades...jump, jungle, or desert..I wore them all.  In the beginning, they gave me blisters until I worked them in, and the blousing rubbers always cut painfully into my calves, but I wore them with pride.  They were excellent bargaining tools.  Brian would spit shine them if I agreed to do his laundry (well worth it, he had a talent for shining boots).  I even paid an outrageous fortune to have a pair resoled like tennis shoes, so I could wear them throughout my pregnancy and still be in uniform.  Swollen feet forced some less resourceful pregnant soldiers to wear more comfortable shoes.  To me, that was just unacceptable and well, embarrassing especially on Fort Bragg.            
     I once owned a pair of thigh highs...two sizes to small..but hey, did I mention they were thigh high?  I wore them to a party Brian and I attended at a friend's house.  On the way there, we got a flat tire.  They were so sexy, Brian wouldn't let me get out of the car.  We'd gotten the flat in a somewhat bad Fayetteville neighborhood.  I guess I looked a little like a prostitute.  Well, it was a costume party.
   After returning from Desert Storm, I marched miles and miles in them every day.  They didn't have anything else for us to do until the equipment returned on the boats.  It took months for my feet to recover from that.  Thank goodness for my friend Wilma at Visage.  She healed my feet.
  http://www.visageeuropeandayspa.com/
   I've owned many pair over the years and have found it somewhat painful to let them go when their time came.  My western ones were resoled twice.  I eventually got a new pair the last time I was in Arizona.  I literally planned the visit to a particular store, put it in to my trip itinerary.  
   I have a dozen pair in my closet as I write this, so yes, I think I can safely call my boots a passion.  But the hardest part of having a passion for something is that it often comes with pain.  I could deal with the blisters, I could handle the size issues, but the thing that bothered me on an emotional level was always the fact that I had to work around my thick calves.  Some boots just didn't fit..and I feared they never would.  I blamed my mother for years.  She always claimed to have dancers legs which gave her muscular calf muscles.  But I knew it was me and my big legs, my secret curse.  
    I think wearing boots makes us feel powerful and in control.  Last season, on The Biggest Loser, a contestant cheered with joy when she realized that she had lost enough weight to finally wear boots again.  Right there with you, sister.
   The other day my husband did something he rarely does...he walked in to a shoe store to help me find a pair of boots to go with a new dress I'd purchased.  I'll admit I was hesitant.  I walked fast in and out of aisles hoping to lose him.  I thought perhaps a nice pair of men's shoes would catch his interest and give me the time to try a few boots on...while we wasn't looking.  I would see a gorgeous pair of boots in my size and inevitably, they would not zip over my legs.  Anxiety, depression, tears...I've had them all...over boots.
   Well, that day, my husband did not wander as I'd hoped.  Instead, he brought me a pair of boots he liked.  They were beautiful and perfect for the dress I'd intended on wearing them with.  I honestly came close to asking him to look away. I prepared myself emotionally...then I zipped.  I felt as if I'd completed a half marathon.  They actually fit...they zipped up all the way.  He smiled.
    I told him I'd have to try on both.  I once bought a pair of boots after only trying on the right.  The right leg fit...the left did not.  My stupid right leg had atrophied after knee surgery making me believe the boots would fit.  When I got home and tried on both boots together, I couldn't zip the left boot up.  I was too embarrassed to return them.  I gave them to a friend with beautiful slender calves.
   But this time was different.  I was going home with the most beautiful boots.  As we stood in line, he said, "Its because of all the walking, you know?"  I was so happy.  I had finally, after a lifetime of pain and anxiety, discovered the secret of how to embrace my passion without fear.  Walking had given me shapely, slender calves.  Maybe there is something to this exercise thing after all.