I met Sarah Jessica Parker today. And by "met" I mean I wandered into her store and she was there and she welcomed me. And by "wandered" I mean I saw on Instagram that she would be there and walked 20 blocks to check out the situation. Anyway, despite the details, I feel certain we are now best friends.
Upon meeting her I had decided I was going to prolong the meeting by buying a pair of shoes. Shoes that were going to cost more than my two week stay hotel bill (it's cheap to stay in New York these days), but there was paparazzi outside, I didn't want to let anyone down and I was committed.
I stalked the store for a pair of affordable (take the word affordable with a grain of salt as it pertains to the story) flats, held them admiringly, thought of my trips to...well I go no where during covid in my small town, but my trips to say Big Lots, where I am possibly already the most fashionably dressed, were looking even better with the addition of the expensive SJP flats bought from her as she was actually waiting on customers. But she was also actually having the customers TRY the shoes on. And this is where things come to a screeching halt.
I was surrounded by wealthy, possibly famous (no way to say for sure as we are all masked and the paparazzi was shooting everyone going in and out just in case) New Yorkers who were trying on the shoes. I felt certain these women had access to a little thing called a pedicure. As someone who lives in the central valley of California where the swinging door of "are they open are they closed?" rocks back and forth in a head spinning frenzy, pedicures can be hard to come by. And recently the door swinging has stood in the way of my pedicures. Long gone was the pedicure cherished in a brief opening in early October.
I had only recently scraped off the last remains of the fall like embers hanging on to the middle of my toenails for dear life. The toes were a mess, awful. So while clutching (caressing) the life changing flats while SJP smiled at me, I returned them to their spot and pretended to browse more as if those shoes, were not the shoes for me, but maybe the $2,000 sparkling gold healed boots were, and to be clear they also would have looked stunning at Big Lots.
But, I couldn't do it. I couldn't try on the shoes with my pedicureless covid toes in front of Sarah Jessica Parker. I just couldn't do it. We had a final laugh together as I left and she knocked over all her display shoes and broke a shoe stand in the front window while the paparazzi clicked away and then I slunk out onto the street where, by now, the paparazzi was onto me and didn't feel, even masked, that I could be somebody worth his time.
I am in New York. Spending time with the college girls. Grateful. Trying to reinvent...well, everything. Yes, trying to just reinvent all of it. Family with adult children, family with college children during a pandemic, family with a married daughter, family with high schooler at home for a year, family with a husband working from home more often than not, family with all the changes. So, yes, just trying to reinvent it all.
Family with a mom who doesn't have a career anymore. The career is just being a mom. It would have been a weird adjustment for me without a pandemic, but the pandemic really highlighted it all. The dream career would be writing, but the pandemic has somewhat clouded that and left me unmotivated.
Anyway, today I am writing. I have been starting and stopping writing things for months. But today I am writing. Today I promised myself I would just write and finish something. And this is it. Written and about to be finished.
I met Sarah Jessica Parker today, we are best friends. I can't wait until she finds out we are!
