Sometimes I feel like I am a pair of shoes waiting for the right feet.  It’s a metaphor, so it only goes so far, but sometimes it really fits.  

So, I had this pair of shoes that I kept for… 3 years?  About that.  And they never fit right.  In fact, it might have been longer than that.  It might have been nearly five years.  They’re great shoes, though. Earth Shoes, so not cheap, great for your calves, totally cute.  They were a tiny bit tight when I bought them, but I thought a bunch of things that were based in complete denial, but that all got me to the same place: these shoes just don’t fit.

Now, it’s worth saying that I grew up in a household with older sisters and a mother, but I was always bigger than everyone else.  I had at least four inches on my nearest tall sister, and three shoes sizes.  And I was always just bigger–wider shoulders, wider hips, taller, bigger, stronger.  Mom said it was because she breast fed me.  ::shrugs:: I don’t suppose it matters, but I always felt like the extreme oddball.  Then again, I also didn’t think of it much… until I moved into my current house.

I live with three other women and three times as many men, and all those other women have the same shoes size as me: 11.  We’re all different body shapes and sizes, but we are still able to share clothes, and for the first time in my life, shoes.  On this subject, my bliss defies words.

It’s also worth pointing out that in my particular Co-Op, we have the Free Store, which is a section of our basement devoted to redistribution of goods.  Leave something you no longer need there, and pick up something else you do need.  It’s a great system, and it’s nice to know that all the stuff you don’t need is going to someone who will need it.  Also, the basement is closer than Goodwill.

So, I was switching my closet over from winter to summer, and I always like to pare down when I do this.  My pink fake-snakeskin 4.5 inch stilettos and the Totally Awesome EarthShoes that Never Fit to Begin With both went to the Free Store… but then I saw Tori cooking in the kitchen and offered them to her, first, having shared shoes with her in the past, and knowing they might be up her alley.  And don’t you know, her foot is just narrow enough to find those EarthShoes perfectly wonderful.

And she had been trawling DSW earlier in the day (an almost unforseen circumstance for Mermaid-in-a-Teacup to be doing, she who is more comfortable dumpster diving than being in a mall at this point in her life) because she’s considering a job as the director of education for a large non-profit, and if she takes it, she’ll need just this type of shoe; something she can walk all over an urban area, but something dressier than birkenstocks or workboots.

“My manifesting is on!!!” she crowed, and I couldn’t help but to agree.  I had obviously and unconsciously kept these damn shoes for nearly five years so that the Mermaid would have the perfect footwear exactly when she needed it.  The shoes were in a liminal place (my closet) for a long time, only to be present and available at the perfect time, in the perfect way.

Which brings me to me.  And anyone, everyone who has felt in limbo, in that crazy no-where/every-where between point A and point B.  The liminal place.  I feel, every now and then, like I am sitting in God’s closet and at the exact perfect time I’m going to be drawn out and set down into the perfect situation.

Of course, the metaphor breaks down right after that, because whilst in the closet I’m still doing my thing, and of course being in the closet is another metaphor I don’t wish to invoke at this particular time, but sometimes it feels like I am a really awesome pair of shoes waiting for the right set of feet.