Enforced Secret Joy #28 – Skirts and Boots

I haven’t worn skirts on a regular basis in years. YEARS. Like, right after high school, I think. And I don’t even think I wore them that much in high school, but I do recall a skirt or two on my body during that time. But it was always the chaste kind, where the hem is coming down to your ankles, because it’s September, and it’s cold, and it seems very fall like to wear a long skirt, and high school principals frown on Le Miniskirt, and blah blah blah.

When I hit college, it was ALL about Hey! I’m on my own! I’m gonna wear what I want because there’s no Mom staring at me across the kitchen table! So no skirts. Ever. Which seemingly has persisted to this day. Sure, there’s the occasional dress I wear to church during the Christmas holidays and the random wedding here and there, but no skirts. Ever.

There’s a psychological block at work. I inherited most every genetic trait from my Dad, the Great Stoic Wonder, and that includes my tragic bowedleggedness (He is also to blame for the genetic code that wakes me up at 5:30am in the morning.) Seriously, when I was a competitive gymnast in high school, my coach informed me that I was getting points docked during my balance beam routine because the judges kept thinking I wasn’t straightening my legs when they actually WERE straight. Just bowed. This high school coach also cracked the joke that “you could drive a herd of wild pigs through your legs,” they were so bowed. I didn’t like this coach much.

So the last thing I wanted to do would be to don a skirt that would highlight this unfortunate quality. But now here I am, working in Corporate Dilbert World, worse, in Marketing and Advertising, where every girl sports every trendy fashion they can pick up from Vogue, and every day someone’s wearing the skirt and boots get up.

I thought maybe I should try that look myself, since the boots would offset the bowlegged quality I was concerned about. And I also thought that it was high time I just got over myself already. I’m a chick. I don’t HAVE to wear jeans and pants all the time. Guys can’t wear skirts unless they’re Scottish, so I should embrace the feminine aspect o’ me and all that crap.

So when I was at home for the Christmas holidays, I picked up a skirt and boots combo, which you see here. And I’ve incorporated it and other skirts into my wardrobe on a weekly basis.

And I’m truly surprised at how much I like wearing them. Not only do I look like I belong in Marketing and Advertising, but they make me look GOOD. Sexy, even. Like a chick. Sure, the corporate length of the skirt goes a long way to hiding the bowed legs, but it’s the boots, definitely. No demure two-inch heels for me. It’s boots all the way, baby. I can type 90 words a minute AND kick your ass in my almost knee-high boots, I can.

Dear God, thank you for skirts. Thank you for boots. Thank you for MY skirt and boots. Thank you for giving me the strength to once again get over myself, though it wasn’t so much an active act of will as it was more of a “Um, okay, fine, whatever,” kind of letting go. But it still counts. Anything I achieve that makes me feel better about myself has to have Your hand in it somewhere. Thank you that I’m a girl. Thank you for my bowed legs, not because I want to, but because it feels like something I should say. ☺

Thank you for the fact that nobody walked into the office bathroom when I was taking these pictures in the full length mirror, because they would just think I’m weird, instead of the truth, which is the only full length mirror in my house is in Roomie Jekyll’s bedroom, and I have to leave for work before she wakes up. Thank you for letting me acknowledge and embrace this part of me: Amy + Boots & Skirt = Goddess (in a completely non-competing deity kind of way.)

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Amen.