Boots!

Christmas has come a little early in our house this year, at least for me, with a pair of new boots from Eric.  I have wanted boots like this ever since the seventh grade, when all the girls came back to school from Christmas vacation wearing these awesome, knee-high, leather, high-heeled boots with their pant legs tucked in, or under skirts or dresses.  I was so jealous of each and every one of them, as I’m sure all I received (all I ever received) for Christmas that year were gifts my parents deemed gender-appropriate, including ugly, clunky, boy snow-boots.  Ugh.  Christmas was always disappointing for me as a kid, because it only served to underscore my reality at the time: I was considered a boy, and boys are expected to act in a very specific way, like specific things, and engage in boy-appropriate activities (like sports).  My two brothers conformed eagerly and effortlessly to this convention, and my two sisters did the same, for the most part, with the parallel expectations for girls.  And I was just lost.  Well, not so much lost, as boxed in and misplaced.  It wasn’t about the gifts, per se… I would have happily traded all of my “boy gifts” for one “girl gift,” or no gift at all, if I could have just been accepted, loved, and included as my authentic self.  It was no mystery at all to me who that self was, and before I knew better, I found creative ways to let her out.  But she was never truly embraced (much less acknowledged) by anyone else in my life until recently.  That is a very tough thing for a little kid to navigate, and it doesn’t come without a lot of pain and suffering.  Fortunately, I survived—Madeline survived—and now I too have a pair of my very own awesome, knee-high, leather, high-heeled boots, which I plan on wearing proudly and joyfully this winter.  Thank you, Eric, for helping me realize a long-lost childhood dream… I don’t know how you knew, but you did, and I love you (and the boots!).  One step closer, and in appropriate footwear…