I had a wonderful dinner a couple weeks back with six other women. These are not close friends but business colleagues; I am maybe twenty years older than the next closest to my age. While I’m on the back nine of my career, they’re all still playing through, at the peak of their corporate games. I liked them all.
As is common with women, the conversation eventually turned to shoes. They all pretty much agreed that their husbands didn’t get it. The guys just didn’t understand that a third pair of black heels wasn’t actually shoes but a business essential. Nobody complained about their men making an issue over money. It was over space, and how much should be devoted to footwear.
That made me think of my own wardrobe since the Mister departed for the happy hunting ground. For some time, it wasn’t an issue because I rather precipitously doubled my closet space. But shoes began to leak out. I put together a shoe rack. And another. Then three more attractive enough to live along the walls outside the closet.
Shoes are spreading like moss. My bedroom is now ringed with them. Like beloved books, they live on whether I still use them or not.
I didn’t share my observation with these women, all of whom are still in marriages that require a little justification in the shoe leather department. Not everyone wants to contemplate the good times they have ahead when there’s no one to hold them back.
But believe me … it’s a good thing to look for the upsides of widowhood. There’s no other curative as powerful as laughter.
