I have lots of posts about having a positive outlook during trials in your life or keeping a good attitude when people are ugly to you or maintaining hope when life seems to be giving you its worst. My perspective has been about what to do in the midst of all of these experiences because that is what my story was doing. It was being in the midst of all of that. Things have begun to change, though. In a big way.
What many people may not know is that my first marriage actually ended legally twice. There was the final divorce that began in March of 2013 and then dragged on into May of 2014. That's the one most people in my life know about, and that is the one I have referenced most in this blog. There was another one though.
There was 2009.
On July 14, 2009, my heart decided that it was time to go. There were things that will never be revealed here that I needed to be different that were definitely not going to change, so I packed some things and called my big brother. With a bag over each shoulder and a baby on each hip, I walked out of my home to go stay with my older brother. I was with him and his family for a number of weeks and then moved in with my mom.
My world had been rocked. I had expected my marriage to last forever. When things got super rocky, I thought meeting the request to start a family would smooth them over. When they got rocky again, I thought I should get pregnant again...so I did. It was not entirely deliberate, but I digress. Baby number 2 did not become a catalyst for unity. My whole world fell apart. I was absolutely devastated by feeling like I had to move out, and then I was served with divorce papers. I felt like I was going to spontaneously combust. At one point I was losing a pound a day because I couldn't make myself eat most days. If I managed to eat, I couldn't keep anything down. It was awful. It was truly awful.
By Christmas time I had worked for several months at a small Christian school where my mom also worked. I managed after school care for the students there. I did not particularly enjoy it, but it paid money. I had agreed to be mostly stay at home during my then 5 year long marriage so my ability to earn income was measly. I really did not have much at all to do Christmas for my two little people and had grown accustomed to not really having Christmas for myself anyway. My mother, however, had not.
A DSW had opened in the mall area, and my sister and I had made an event of going to their grand opening. I lusted after a pair of boots that retailed for like $250 and were priced at $100 at DSW. I stared at them every time I went there knowing full well that they were so far outside my pricerange, it was like talking about the day I would buy a Maserati. It was for fun. It was like my tangible vision board.
Imagine my shock on Christmas morning when my mother (who had been suddenly widowed herself 2 years before) gave me and my little sister envelopes with $150 in them. I am tearing up right now because I do not have any idea where that money came from or what she potentially had to sacrifice to give us that along with the other small things she had given us. "You girls have to go shopping with that...Sarah...you have to go buy your boots because that's my money and I said so". I didn't even know if they still had my size since they'd had those boots on display for a month already.
They had my size, and I bought the nicest pair of shoes I'd ever had. They felt so perfect on my funny shaped feet right away. I didn't even feel like I had to break them in.
I wore them and wore them and wore them.
That winter passed into spring. I put the boots into the back of my closet and decided to ill-advisedly rush back into the relationship that was equally toxic as it had ever been. I busied myself that next winter and wore my boots whenever I could until that winter turned into spring and then summer. My kids' dad and I had been back together for about a year by then, and I'd convinced him that we should have another baby. I soon discovered that I was pregnant again.
We moved just a few months later away from my home and my family. I have regretted that decision more than any of my life because our arrival in our new home served an inappropriately easy time for old problems to bubble back to the surface. I didn't wear my boots that many times that year. What proved to be a very difficult pregnancy landed me at home most of the time. The baby that was born got so sick when she was small that we spent nearly her entire second month at the hospital. That was an incredibly lonely time for me. There were so, so many ways that I was alone. I wore comfortable flats that could go with easy to care for clothes for my soft and still swollen post partum body. My focus was not on finding ways to wear my boots - even after we came home. I stayed at home guarding my little woman. I just wanted to insulate her to keep her alive.
Eventually the baby got strong again and that winter did like all the others that have come before and turned into spring. Open toed things and shiny heels adorned my feet in the heat of a coastal summer. Those months became...so difficult. I found out more news that completely broke my heart to a point of no return, and then I had two kidney surgeries.
The summer passed into fall, and I was ready to pull my beloved boots out of the back of the closet, but something terrible happened. At a dance class at the gym, I side-stepped and tore my knee completely in half rivaling injuries of NFL players. I wouldn't need my boots for 2 months...I couldn't even walk. This turn of events seemed to open up a Pandora's box for all the inadequacies of what I had used to build my life. It was all a front. I'd been lying to myself, and the pieces of my lies to my own heart started to crumble apart. I wore the boots a lot that winter. They made me feel like I was readying myself to tread ground I couldn't yet see. My vulnerable shins and unsteady knee were made stronger by the well crafted leather. I wore away the soles of the boots as life beat against my soul. We were both weakening, but we had to keep going.
As the spring started to warm everything with cold nights still something to consider and after I had once again relegated my boots to their place in the back of the closet, life spun me around again, and I actually had to leave the boots and most everything else that I owned. Once again, like the previous year, I forgot about the boots. They weren't important at all. Just my kids. My marriage had ended again, and this time I knew it was absolutely for good. I went again back to my family to where I knew my heart was safe in a time that was more painful than I can articulate. Again I got served with papers that cemented what I already knew. My knee was still not steady. I actually still walked with a limp that was more pronounced on days that it was cold but also there when the road should have been easier to travel. I needed my boots, and they made their way back to me.
Finding myself to be a single gal with bills to pay, I got myself a job. This particular job required that I wear a uniform. Sensible navy heels or flats were the order of footwear. I pulled out the boots just a few times that winter, but they mostly stayed put away just waiting for when they were needed. There came to be a scratch on one toe, and occasionally I would slather some inexpensive polish over them to keep them from cracking. I got an offer for a job that, although it promised to be better, became a disaster that included some horrible betrayals, in fact. I did, however, get to pull out my boots. I wore them a lot. Even though it was summer and then a hot fall, the styling of the store merchandise featured a lot of knee height boots. By this time, the boots and I had been together for years so we knew each other quite well. My tired feet would find their way into well worn spots inside each one, and we'd stomp around together all day doing all I could to conquer my corner of the world. It just wasn't enough.
I was once again at the end of my rope. Despite working 45 to 50 hours a week on a 40 hour a week salary, I could not make ends meet and was about to be homeless...again. The boots were starting to break down too. One day at work, I heard a weird hollow clack where I used to hear the sound of a solid thud of rubber on the cement floor. I'd worn a hole all the way through the heel. I actually had to keep wearing them because they were all I had by then. The hole became even bigger to the point that the heel was peeling away. They were done, and so was I. My life fell apart, and I had to leave my children that I'd worked so hard to provide for. I was gone from them for 7 months. I got to visit them once. Incidentally, the boots went with me, but they couldn't be worn. I was never able to secure employment while I was living in my new home, and my then boyfriend (now husband) couldn't afford such superficial things as repairing a pair of boots. Looking at them was a cruel reminder that they were broken and ragged and worn away...like me.
The boots and I made it through that winter and made our way back to my babies with my new husband and a new little secret that I didn't learn until we were back here...another baby. That pregnancy was awful and left me, again, very sick - in and out of the emergency or hospital actually - and unable to work. We were so limited in what we could do with our money. The boots remained delapidated and dusty. I would pull them out and rub my hand over the leather to keep them from ruining or molding. I felt so regretful every time of how hopeless their condition seemed. It felt so reflective of my heart. I could not bear to part with them.
I noticed that the pack and ship store behind our tiny house advertised shoe repair. I felt like it was another cruel reminder of what I wanted but could never have, but this year, after the baby was born and my body began to heal a little, after the winter thawed into spring, I decided it was time to breath life back into the boots.
This year has been so strange to me, but there has been something that I cannot deny. This entire post has illustrated through my words how I spent years and years encountering loss, but this year, God has started to give it all back. I have spent more time with my children this year than any since my marriage ended. My husband and I have gotten to catch up on things that were so far behind. I have seen my family more this year than I have for 4 years. I had had to go more than a year without seeing my parents and my little brother or my little sister. My kids hadn't seen their grandparents or aunt and uncle and none of us had seen my older brother and his wife and their boys for the entire four years. This year, we've all gotten to see all of them multiple times. I got to go to the place where I was born and kiss the post built by the grandfather I never met of the home where my mom grew up and see cousins and friends and family I hadn't seen in 20 years...20 years. God has given me back things that have been missing from my life for 20 years.
Last week, I decided it was time. I pulled out the boots for the Instagram shoot that I did for the previous post with the thrift store clothes and decided that it was time. On Wednesday of last week, I put the boots into the basket of the baby's stroller, and we walked over the the Pack and Ship. I filled out a little manila card with instructions, but I realized I didn't quite know what I wanted. I also wanted to be careful about how much cost I was committing to because we've tried to begin doing Christmas shopping and because of how my husband the public school teacher gets paid, we cover all our bills at the beginning of the month. Either way, my service would require a phone call from the cobbler.
The following night as we all sat at Taco Bell to quickly nourish 2 gymnasts, 1 baseball player and 1 school teacher, my phone rang. A very pleasant voice on the other end introduced himself as the shoe repairman, and he began to ask for clarification on the repair. The sole and heel were his first questions. Initially the heel was my concern, but I realized and then he confirmed - the sole was going to need a redo. The sole needed attention too. He then asked about the finish of the leather. He explained that it was a bit malnourished and dry but he took note that the look of wear might be something I wanted to keep. "I can put a polish on it in the same color that it was originally stained, but I didn't know if you wanted that. Or I could just seal it and keep the look that it has - and that will keep it from cracking and falling apart." I tried to think quickly and went with my gut "Yeah, if you could just seal it. I kind of like if for them to look like they'd just walked across a farm not like...a store or something". And that was that.
I got a call this morning that they were ready. My husband and I have had the discussion of being very mindful with our spending because of the circumstances above, so I checked with him to make sure paying for my boots wasn't going to throw off what he'd been working on. He assured me that it was fine, so I excitedly put the baby back into her stroller and traversed the hot, newly laid black top of the alley behind the strip mall that houses the Pack and Ship.
There was a little line, so I opened my wallet to retrieve my claim ticket, and then I saw it - the check from my friend. I did her makeup for her family photo shoot last weekend and she paid me - something I didn't expect from her. It was another reinforcement that these boots...this was supposed to happen. My turn came to turn in my claim ticket, and the clerk took it from my hand to head to the back. "Did you get a call that they were ready?" she asked from her position through the stock room door. "Uh huh" I replied trying to hide the disappointment in my voice. "BOOTS!" and she made her way into the light of the store again. "Why am I always looking for shoes? It's BOOTS season!"
Indeed.
She laid the clear plastic bag on the counter, and I felt my eyes get wide. Then the tears started to come as it all fell into place in my mind - what these boots mean and what it means to have them repaired. I shared some of my story and she shared some of hers - they were more similar than different. We talked about having to walk away from something not so good into somewhere - into the unknown. "It's been 5 years for me...how about you? How long's it been for you?" "4" I said holding up 4 fingers in case my voice caught in my throat.
She sent me away with encouraging words, and my eyes welled up again as I pushed open the glass door and made my way back through the hot alley way.
And now here I sit - 7 years later - me and my boots. I can put them on tomorrow (and probably will). They have been given a once-over by an artful eye and a knowing hand. They have been given the ability once again to tread ground however rocky or treacherous. It won't matter. They can withstand the elements. They can repel and protect against things that could cause damage. Each portion of what the boots are and what they are supposed to do has been given attention. It has been given restoration. They have not been refinished. They have not been made to look as though they have never traveled a step. They've just been sealed so they're ready for more. Whenever someone looks at them, they will know that they are not new or without scar or flaw. But those silly little boots that my mother bought me during a time she knew I'd be learning how to stand have been restored. They're ready.
And so am I.
