#10 You can’t always get what you want…
I took this photo at the office after a full day running across the building with my heels on. When the day ended, and I was about to leave, I did the usual: I looked for the shoe bag in my locker and started to change into "Mum mode." That's what I call the flats, the boots, whatever comfortable shoe I'd chosen that day to change from working woman to the other me. I know I am not "just a mum," nor am I only a businesswoman, but changing outfits does something to me, like when Clark Kent enters the phone booth and becomes Superman. Maybe my heels give me superpowers...
As I was changing my shoes, I looked at my feet and wondered if this change was a way to make my life more comfortable or proof of something else. I didn't change my shoes when I was younger. I drove, walked full days in the office, went to the supermarket, and danced on my heels. I was only one, only me. Then, the kids arrived, and I realized it was not practical to run in the park with ten-centimeter heels or hold a baby while wearing long earrings and necklaces. Shiny stuff calls for tiny hands, and after a while, all my shiny pieces found a home in the jewelry box in my bedroom. I started to change how I dressed because I couldn't keep up with the different expectations at work and home. I began to be not one but two: the "me at work" and the "me at home." For many years, I did not care about this duplicity. I joked about it and embraced it until one day, I looked at myself in the mirror, in the elevator at work, and did not recognize myself. I had not become a tall blonde woman (that would have been funny), but I had transformed myself into the joke I told others. My shoe changes were no longer something I did but the image many had of me.
I confronted myself with a terrible question: Was that what I wanted to be? I didn't—that was a fact—but I didn't know how to find my old self, "the one" I remembered. That day, driving home, I tried to remember how life used to be "before," but that is a tricky idea... before what? Partner? Kids? This or that job? Or country? ... I realized there were too many goalposts I had already passed by. Which was the "me" I was trying to recover? The one in high heels and makeup? The ingenious and energetic fresh-out-university worker? The madly in love woman? The first-time mum convinced me that babies are no reason to stop a career?
I arrived home, took out my shoes, and ran upstairs to my bedroom. I looked at the rack of shoes. I opened the wardrobe and looked at the items in hangers, organized by use: work and private clothes. I left the closet and looked for all my shiny jewelry, hidden in pretty boxes. I lined up all the boxes on top of the bed and opened them. Then, I organized all the boxes chronologically, and there it was: I saw that there were not two "mes" there, lying in my bed, but a very complex one that had changed over time. Big earrings and long necklaces first, chockers and cheap items later, followed by smaller and classier pieces. An engagement ring, bracelets, and more bracelets, then, slowly, some earrings, an expensive ring, and a few short necklaces... my life evolved and changed, and my jewelry captured those stages much better than my dear shoes... who would say?
