a good pair of shoes

We celebrate 21 years of marriage today. In honor of that, I’m revisiting an all time favorite story. We share it every year. But I thought I’d refresh it a bit, first. 

Because before the really good stuff…

wonderful photographs by Light by Iris 

there was this

and this. 

Yeah, we’ve aged a little. LIKE FINE WINE, OKAY??? At least this is what we tell ourselves. 

wonderful photographs by Light by Iris 

But before all this… 

I thought I’d show you an awkward double t-shirt, christmas-lights-on-the-wall because that’s what you did in college kinda photo. 24 years ago, we started dating. This is probably one of our first photos. We were babies – I was actually eighteen when we met. We’re certainly not the same people that we were. I can attribute it to a lot of things, but sometimes, I think we’re just lucky that we grew together.

Life is hard enough just trying to figure out who you are, so marriage… It takes a lot of hard work. But for us, it just gets better. 

Three kids, three dogs, three mortgages, one big move and a complete rehab, two jobs and one business tirelessly grown from the ground up… an existential crisis with a side of chicken fingers for dinner, and a couple more wrinkles with all the real stuff, the important moments thrown in between. I couldn’t begin to sum it up if I tried.

The heartache right along side the joyful moments – the tears and laughter, big and small, they’ve all been a part of our story and who we are. And here we are.

I’d do it all again, a million times over. It’s not easy. But we do just get better with age.

No. Really. I like my hair more, and I stopped caring so much about what other people think. So in honor of another year, we thought we’d share our very favorite post of all time. A good pair of shoes. 

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Don’t you love the timeline of life? Certain events lead you to a certain place at a certain time… details are sprinkled in later, and you never really saw it coming when it actually happened? The best part, is that sometimes you don’t realize it’s happening when it happens.

It’s only later that you can really appreciate that train wreck of an important moment.

We were discussing it the other day when I realized that if I’m counting the years we dated, we’ve officially been together over half our lives. As you get older, these revelations are probably interesting little epiphanies that you note and then move on.

This one is too good of a story not to tell. I’ve been feeling quite sentimental, so now you get to suffer read along today, in case you’ve never read or heard it. Or maybe you just need a little comic relief. Obligatory disclaimer: If you hate love stories this is for you. And if you love love stories… this is for you. You see, we actually ended up ‘hating’ each other at first.

But let’s begin at the beginning, shall we? Because this is the story of how we met.

It was the fall of 1998 and I was a freshman. Think fall leaves, Birkenstocks, {Those are totally back, and I have my originals because shoe hoarder} and hot football games. In the tropics of south Alabama, we should’ve been donning our latest fall clothes just like all the tired college movies portray, but we couldn’t because sweaters + heat exhaustion is how we rolled. Auburn University was my alma mater of choice, and I traipsed to class charmed by the romantical notions of old clock bells, cobblestone streets, and fresh beginnings.

I had arrived.

I know. How original.

I think it’s important to note that I’d broken up with my high school boyfriend. No, we weren’t the four year, steady sweethearts type. We were the out of convenience, through my junior year, I-just-got-to-college and boyfriends-are-a-real-drag, because college-is-fun, type. We pretty much beat a dead horse for nearly a quarter of school, but we’d finally called it quits. For. Ev. VER.

Dobby is a free elf.

Before I knew it, the first week of December was here.

I was rooming with one of my closest high school friends at the time… in a dorm room on ‘the hill’. The hill was supposedly better than the quad because you were able to share a bathroom and not die of heat exhaustion- our dorms actually had air conditioning. The downside, was that we also had suite mates who would frequently wake us in the middle of the night with the joyful sounds of bodily fluid rejections in the wake of a party aftermath. Hashtag collegememories. Either way, It was my first chance to try my mad decor skillz. This included an awkward art project that pretty much encapsulated all of my limited views at the time {my pointillism depiction of Jesus was equal parts edgy and humiliating} along with a few token Anne Geddes/Jared Leto posters.

So much embarrassment.

No regrets on the Jared Leto part.

Side note: Wanna feel old? My daughter had her friends over last weekend, and they were talking celebrity crushes. They asked to see mine. When I showed them a photo, I A. couldn’t find one where Jared doesn’t think he’s Jesus {see: hair and cult and} B. they totally side eyed me because OLD.

But back to 1998: It was my chance to hone in on my ill-acquired decor taste and I absolutely ran with it, topping it off with a bed-in-a-bag from Bed Bath and Beyond, and wait for it… Christmas lights strung precariously around the room. Colorful. Christmas lights. You haven’t been to college until you decorate with Christmas lights. It was a vibe. 

Picture all of this set to the moody background anthems of Third Eye Blind. With a side of Alanis’ sophomore album. It was cringe-worthy. I would dig out a photo to show you so you can laugh, but I can’t find one.

Oh wait.

I kid you not. Behold the original gallery wall. If you ever start to feel bad about yourself, just remember my gingham-clad Anne Geddes Jesus pointillism art collection. Who knew I was going to make a career out of this? WE DID NOT SEE THAT ONE COMING.

You can always turn it around. You’re welcome.

We’d decided to go to a party that night. No. Scratch that. I decided to drag my roommate with me to said party, and I think she went with me out of a mix of pity/nothing better to do at the moment. It wasn’t just any party. It was a 60’s party. Because nothing says Merry Christmas quite like mood rings and plaid tweed.

No, I don’t know who was in charge.

I had it all planned out. My costume that is. I’m going to sound like I was totally into myself, and that’s because I was. This was my freshman year of college, remember? The heydays of vanity with all things Bioré strips {totally back, according to my 15 year old} and outfit planning because we all had time for it even though we thought we were busy. I had a pair of killer pants from Abercrombie. Let me clarify that they were probably my only pair of pants from Abercrombie when my pre-children birthing bod could still fit into such nonsense. But they had these awesome pockets that gave me a perky bum, and they were totally bellbottoms. Khaki bellbottoms. My favorites.

My roommate and I ventured to this store the day before. One of those types on Main Street run by art school goths before there were hipsters {which makes them the hipsters of hipsters?} selling overpriced vintage finds. You know, the kind where they beat us to the thrift store and then tripled the price, and we purchased said shirt because we’re dumb. We found the perfect 60’s shirts to don and why am I telling you this? Because I topped it all off with the perfect pair of shoes.

It was all about the shoes.

I’ve always had an obsession with shoes.

A bit of a back story for the back story: I still have said shoes, because I could never part with an epic pair like these. I purchased them on a solo summer trip to England – the kind where I’m supposed to find myself, visiting kind relatives who were so sweet to show me London. I didn’t find myself, but I did find the perfect pair of shoes, which at this age, was much more important. I was walking on the sidewalk when they were sitting there, just gleaming in the sun. They called to me from their British perch of awesomeness practically asking me to wear them home.

Tally ho, bish. The Queen of England was jealous that day. I may or may not have been featured in the high school yearbook with these puppies. Never mind that I was on the staff. Never mind that one of my close friends took the photo. This is not of importance. They were the shoes.

Exhibit A: {is for awesome}

I know what you’re thinking. A clown decided to become a cobbler and wield these puppies straight from the dashboard of a salvaged 1970’s Cadillac.

He probably did, and that’s why they were on the street that day.

But back from that thought derailment: If a future me had skidded to a fiery halt out of a DeLorean to tell me that very night that I would meet my future husband, I would have laughed in their face, aghast, and then eagerly scanned the room. Isn’t this the stuff fairytales are made of? I was standing at a party. In amazing shoes. Waiting for that moment I’d only dreamed of all of my life.

Yay stereotypes.

I was in no place for a relationship, mind you, and let’s not forget the part where I was a teenager. My brain didn’t even wake up until 30.

We sauntered into the party a little late, grabbed a table with some other freshmen I recognized and tried to play it cool in the back. We had vague conversations and everything was kind of a blur, until they decided to MC the party with a game. The game was “Let’s Make a Deal.” {Yes, this was a highly organized party circa 1998.}

We sat through a few cycles of typical gameshow eliminations, a little bored with the inability to make conversation but humored by bad prizes and embarrassing moments. When suddenly the “Host” announced: “If you’re wearing platform shoes, please come to the front.” A slew of gals were edging their way to the front of the room, when a guy at our table looked down. “Whoa. Those are platform shoes. Go to the front! Go Go Go!”

The entire table was practically chanting, pushing me, and I {a little reluctantly} made my way. In retrospect, I’m pretty sure they wanted to see me make a fool of myself because boredom. It serves me right for wearing Cadillac remnants but there I was, in the front by my slightly awkward self. One of the very last contestants stumbling forward; these shoes were un-walkable.

I pretty much stood to the far left of the crowd, because I don’t do performances. This round started out with lots of contestants, but one by one, they were eliminated. I have no idea why I lasted so long, or what guesses I made. Maybe it was my competitiveness showing a little. But I was all, Dude. I am going to win something good. I just knew it.

And then I realized it was just the host and me. All eyes. On me. Just. Me.

I swallowed, blinded by the spotlight. Yes, there was a spotlight. This was my moment. It was time to make a deal.

My options: A 3-liter bottle of generic soda… or door number 3. Hmmmm. I was a college student, and in retrospect, I should have gone for the soda. But I was also a Freshman, and hadn’t learned the fine art of non-discriminatory choices on a budget as in my mind, this was not Coke. (See: Diet Rite.) I could have used it for a few finals and caffeine jolts in the coming days. But something stopped me. Curiosity killed the cat, and the crowd was shouting their choices.

In retrospect, I blame it all on peer pressure, and the heady prospect of winning something better.

“Door number three.” I squeaked.

If this is my childhood dream… if I was brainwashed hopelessly by Disney and all things princess movies with ridiculous expectations, and I was about to meet my future husband…

This was the moment.

I was that girl. Standing in a good pair of shoes.

via

 So awesome. So weird. 

But really, scratch the Cinderella bit, because that part will come later. It was more like the ballroom scene from The Labyrinth. You know the one. She’s wearing that awesome poofy sparkle dress with a slew of 80’s ribbons and sleeves that are larger than my head. The dress of all dresses. David Bowie is huffing moody anthems at her while he slinks about with a weird owly creature mask.

{I was too young to know David Bowie was rocking his role. I just wanted to know why he was so pretty, why he was old enough to be her dad, and why the peach lipstick – Important questions that needed to be asked by a fifth grader at a slumber party.}

But then she breaks the giant (bad 80’s graphics) mirror, and she’s again surrounded by bleak reality and weird muppets.

If this was my childhood dream, I just broke the mirror of ridiculous Disney expectations in a much darker Jim Henson flick, and there’s nothing my DeLorean riding self could do about it.

The game show host put on his best Bob Barker voice. The door opened while the crowd erupted with laughter.

“You’ve won a date with Jamin MILLLLLLSSSSS!!!”

This is a photo from later. No bell bottoms. No actual singing. Just us, being stupid.

But there was no David Bowie/ sexually confusing moment, because Jamin Mills makes the most unattractive female I’ve ever seen.

A short skirt. Wonky boobs. Tangled blonde wig. It was definitely a Norman Bates went to college in his mom’s clothes moment. And he definitely stopped to strike a pose: hands on hips, twirling his hair.

More laughter.

There he was. In all his glory. And he was suddenly… like a football player in heels… charging at me?

College.

Infinite roars of hysterics, in a room full of people I didn’t really know, while this guy scooped me up into his arms, and… ran some more. My stringy hippy hair flying behind me… shiny Cadillac shoes clicking together awkwardly, sock boobs in my face.

I’m still impressed that he ran in those heels.

Together we exited, stage left.

The first act was over, but that was just the beginning.

I don’t remember what he said. I don’t remember what I said. He promptly placed me in the dark off-stage area, and I’m pretty sure my face was twenty varying shades of pink while I awkwardly thanked him for putting me down. I righted myself, picked up my last remaining shreds of dignity, and hobbled back to the table in my British clown shoes. With the other freshmen. Right where I belonged.

I laughed it off, but on the inside, I’d totally blown it with the Diet Rite. 

In reality, I had no idea what I’d really just won.

And all because I was wearing a good pair of shoes.

{I continued this one due to requests… read the rest of the story here!}

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