Her Office is a Bathroom

Last week I stepped out of my comfort zone and attended the National PTA Convention in New Orleans, Louisiana.  For weeks before leaving, I was racked with extra anxiety, something I have been dealing with for several years.  Anxiety can be about real things and it can be about nothing at all. Mine is both.  It ebbs and flows throughout the day and night, sometimes hardly there, sometimes seemingly gone, sometimes coming with a force that literally takes my breath away.  I cannot breathe.  I wake up in the night as I sit up in bed gasping for air, then automatically apologize for waking my spouse, and lay back down to sleep as soon as my pounding heart recovers.
In the weeks leading up to my departure, my mind barreled at manic speeds as I juggled my responsibilities and choices back and forth. Nestled in my sister's rocking love-seat, I wrote down my negative self-talk, burned it in her bathroom sink, and replaced it with positive affirmations directly counter to my fears.

"I am powerful.  I am as strong as I need to be.  I do not need to run faster than I have strength.  I am a daughter of God and He loves me.  I CAN let go of what I cannot control, I WILL let go of what I cannot control.  I will be peaceful in my anxiety because Jesus is my anchor and my firm foundation.
Why will I have such an amazing time in New Orleans? because I am amazing."

Folded in my purse, this mantra carried me, not away from my fears, not freed from my anxiety, but through my fears and through my anxiety to my place of strength.

Miraculously, I hardly felt any anxiety while I was gone, just smidgens here and there and one sit-up-in-the-bed-and-gasp-for-air episode.  I'm not sure if that woke the saint of a woman who let me share her bed when there was no room for me. She didn't say.
I went in full force to learn and to share and it was AMAZING.  I made friends with several people. They laughed, and said yes, when to their faces I asked, "Will you be my friend?", referring to Facebook, but also life.

I learned from masters, women and men who serve on state and National PTA boards, children with wisdom beyond their years, and mothers, struggling to balance their own crazy lives but driven by vision and passion to better the lives of their own children and the children of America.  But, most of all, I was touched by the woman working in the bathroom. The convention was held in the largest conference center I have ever seen in my life. It stretches .62 miles and 11 city blocks.  Near the main ballroom where we had our general meetings, was a mammoth bathroom and a woman who worked there.

She was there every time I went inside.

On the second day I went the to bathroom 4 times between 7 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. She was in there every time. She works in the bathroom.  ALL DAY LONG.  And the bathroom smelled bad. ALL OF THE TIME.  I wanted to know her. I wanted to know her story.  Is she grateful for her job? Does it bring her joy?  Do her feet hurt?  Does she feel invisible?  Does she feel trapped? What is her story? What could she teach me?

I was pretty bold last week, but not bold enough or rude enough to invade that woman's realm and pepper her with personal questions. Yet, I admired her.  She smiled as she worked.  She showed up. Her office is a bathroom. She was always there, despite difficult circumstances.

And, without talking to her, I felt a kinship.  She's doing what she has to do.  And so am I.  And if she can show up each day and work long shifts in a windowless, smelly bathroom, I can do the hard things, both placed in my life and there by choice. 

I needed to share this and, on my very last day, as I walked and walked and walked those halls, and walked some more, eating the most delicious dripping double scoop Bluebell ice cream waffle cone, I decided to stop once more in her bathroom, just to see, "Is she really always there?" And as I approached, I saw her, OUTSIDE OF THE BATHROOM, laughing as she  talked to a co-worker and pushed a trash can across the polished floor, briefly emerged from her "office", not completely trapped after all.  She was beautiful. She is strong. And so am I.







 

Grandma Shoes

     Oh, how I miss my 30 year old body, before I developed allergies, before I had to start watching what I eat, before my body decided it's a zombie.  It's not easy being one of the living dead.  Seriously.  So, when somebody makes it a little bit easier for me to function in this world with my falling apart body, it means a lot.  And now, zombie jokes aside, I'd like to share with you my shoe shopping experience on Saturday. 
     About two years ago I stopped wearing cute shoes.  I gave away my boots, my slip-ons, even my silver and gold sparkly ballet flats. I loved those shoes. They literally looked good with everything.
My right foot hurt too much to wear them.  After several expensive trial and error pairs of tennis shoes, I settled on some pink and white Altras. Comfort trumped color.  But, what to wear to church? Every Sabbath step was agony and set my foot off for days.  It was time to get serious.  It was time to accept that my body thought it was dead, or nearly so. 

 I started wearing Grandma Shoes.  These are serious enough that they do in fact require capitalization. 

Grandma shoes look ridiculous with fancy dresses.  They look ridiculous with most dresses.
I have three pairs of these pricey shoes.  And they are super-dee-dooper-dee comfy. 


The sandals are actually pretty cute.  And the others, well, they are Grandma Shoes. 

I went into the SAS store on Saturday, planning to buy a pair of these:


The owner told me he wouldn't sell them to me.  He said he hated them.  They happened to be on clearance, but I saw them online and went in specifically to get these shoes. 

"They'll make your feet hurt. They haven't figured out how to make them right yet."

I asked about these ones, and he let me try them on to see for myself. 

He was right.  They slipped off my heels and pinched the sides of my feet. He suggested these instead:

I tried them on and found the right size and fit.  They are less bulky than the clunky black ones I have, but I still wasn't sure if they were going to fit the bill for the fancy dress up event I have later this week.  I grimaced. 

He understood.  He asked me how far away I lived. "15 minutes" I replied. 

"Take them home" he said. "No paperwork. Just take them and see how they look with your dress. Bring them back when you can." 

He could have made me buy them to take them home and see.  I still would have had to come back to return them. He didn't even ask me my name.  He just handed me the box and let me walk out of the store with $160 shoes. 

Today, I brought them back.  I might purchase them in the Winter time, but today I got a different pair - the same Grandma Shoes I have in beige and black, in a cool shimmery grey.  Yep, I'm embracing my Grandma Shoes.  I'll be wearing a long black skirt to that party with big old clunky, super comfy, Genuine Grandma Shoes on my feet.  And I'm sure some people will notice and wonder why a person who looks fairly young still wears shoes like that.  If they ask me, I'll skim over the chronic pain and share the story of the SAS shoe store owner who trusted me, a total stranger, and made it just a little bit easier to walk in my shoes.