Dear Reader,
When I think about the years in my marriage that led me to where I am at this moment, I am conflicted.
2020 was many things for most people. If I had to pick two words to describe that year for myself, I would pick transformative just as much as I would pick awful. Most of the transformative periods of my life have come from moments where I chose to work on myself; in contrast, 2020 felt like more transformation than I could handle at times, and certainly more than I ever would have chosen at once, if challenges life throws at you could ever be something one got to choose.
There was the obvious thing: I had just become a mother. I have intense, poetic, earth-shattering thoughts on this transition, and they are for another outlet. But what I can say about it, for any of my male readers who can't understand the viscerality of that specific change for a woman: your relationship to your body is fundamentally changed forever. There is an incredible beauty to this change, and, at least for me - there was a certain level of dissociation and disconnection that I needed to lean on during that process in order to emotionally survive. As much as I longed to be the grounded, Earth Motherly badass who found pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum empowering, I was instead terrified at my own physical vulnerability and hyperaware that my body no longer really, fully belonged to me. (The political climate in America at the time did not help to ease the urgency of these fears; it still doesn't.)
But as my child got older and more independent and the postpartum experience became a memory, I began to focus on returning to myself as much as I could. I worked out. I changed my hair. But I struggled to lose the baby weight and struggled even more to keep up with how fashion had changed before and after COVID--even if I could fit into my pre-baby skinny jeans, I would risk looking frumpy and passe if I wore them, apparently. I leaned into dressing for comfort and practicality; I embodied the Mom Jeans that had become so popular during that time, body and soul. Before I knew it, I had unwittingly entered my fashion Flop Era. My staples became loose-fitting linen dresses and wide-leg jeans. And while there is absolutely nothing inherently wrong with dressing like Ina Garten on a daily basis, there wasn't much about that way of dressing that made me feel sexy. I was no longer a woman to be admired for her beauty, I was someone's mom. Why did I need to dress up to look good anyway? I wasn't carefree and single anymore. My nights were spent at home, on the couch, in my pajamas, and my days were spent working at home, from the couch, in clothes that looked like pajamas.
But Reader, I will tell you - sometimes, the clothes make the (wo)man. As any Southern grandma will tell you after a breakup or similarly soul-crushing experience: there are times you need to put on a coat of lipstick and remember just who the fuck you are. When you find yourself in a funk, one way to get out of it is to start from the outside and work your way inward until you feel as good as you look.
My husband, bless him, is a man who understands this.
For my birthday in 2023, I asked for something practical that I knew I would use all the time: a pair of Birkenstock sandals. Arguably, I didn't feel worthy of anything particularly pretty or luxurious. It had been a difficult year, and I was having trouble even summoning the gumption to celebrate myself at all. The Birkenstocks felt like what I deserved: something well-constructed and no-nonsense, designed to survive punishing daily use and to last for years with the proper maintenance. Workhorse shoes for a workhorse wife.
