Pointy-toed Boots

My Nana was an amazing woman.  I always admired her strength, and general kickass attitude.  When we were naughty, she would threaten to kick us in the butt with her "pointy-toed boots".  I never saw said boots, but there were rumours...

At her funeral in 2011, I sat stoically through it all.  I had to for Dad as I knew my strength was the very thin line keeping him upright.  Walking out of the funeral home though, it all just hit me that she was gone.  This woman I so admired for her strength, wit and bright streak of deviousness was human afterall, and had succumbed as we all do.  My head fell, my face cracked and that single tear rolled down my cheek.  A single tear was all it was.  Me being me, and the clumsiest woman in just about all the world, tripped when my brother stopped in front of me and down I went.  I was wearing heels (of course) and my ankle went on that rather horrible angle it tends to do when your heel stays upright while the rest of you doesn't and I was left to brush myself off and hobble out of the funeral home, red faced, swollen ankle and feeling silly.  My only thought was, "Thanks Nana, I needed that.".  I'd finally got the kick up the butt she threatened all those years, at just the right time because Barlow girls are bred tough.  We fight hard, and we take the blows in stride.  I didn't walk right for about a month after that.  A lingering reminder that I had it in me to blaze my own path and make of life what I wanted.  It was to be the start of something big.

I like to think I have some Viking blood in me somewhere.  I've been called a shieldmaiden and I rather like that visual too (sexy breastplate and all lol!).  Sometimes though.... sometimes those pointy-toed boots just don't want to fit.

I have my moments, like we all do.  Sometimes those moments turn into days, and even a week or more.  Believe it or not, I battle self-consciousness on a daily basis.  I, too, feel inadequate, incapable, unworthy, unattractive and alone.  Sometimes the demons surround me, and my sword isn't quite weapon enough to slay them all.  It's the pointy-toed boots, you see.  They are the secret weapon.

Life is sink or swim baby! 

There are times when you feel consumed by all those fears.  All that baggage you've built up wants you to open it up, just for a peek.   My worst is the disappearing act.  There's things that have happened in my past (and we all have a past, there's no need to elaborate) which mean I have a 'thing' about people, especially those I respect and admire, going quiet.  Not just the usual to and fro that life brings, but people I connect with on a daily basis, suddenly not connecting.  Whether they want to, or not, is of course irrelevant to the baggage.  Watch those pointy-toed boots come flying off and going missing in the closet.  It's a very quick path to bringing my fighting spirit to a cowering, insecure halt while I scurry and hide under a rock for fear of looking stupid.

But that viking spirit is hard to kill.  It's in my blood, afterall.  I can only indulge the woe-is-me for so long before I decide that, stupid as I may look or feel, I have to get back to the fight.  I don my pointy-toed boots, and being well rested as I was under that rock, those demons better watch out!

xx