Anyone who's been a server for decades like me can relate. Serving is rough on your body but brutal on your tootsies. I wear excellent shoes now, which my sweet sister gave to me, and couldn't even imagine how my feet would feel if still wearing the Wal Mart work shoes I wore for years. The great thing about Danskos is they look good with jeans, a skirt or even a dress. They are my "Go To" shoes and of course with Ziggy my chewing pup around now, are the only shoes I have left. I used to have two pair of tennis shoes but have been missing one of each pair for months and have yet to discover where he took them. I have a couple of pair of heels but with feet in my condition, shoving them into pointed toe shoes which leave my bruised heels three inches off the ground seems like and IS unnecessary added torture and don't mind being almost five foot four one bit!
Lately, especially after reaching the half century mark other parts of me have been falling apart as well. The arm I've used to carry dishes on for almost thirty five years is (as we say in the south) "Wore slap out." My wrist gives out all the time and my finger prints burned off back in the eighties from cooking pizzas while a manager with Johnny's Pizza. Thankfully I've never been arrested or booked but would find it hard to believe they could raise prints off my fingers. I still have scars up and down each arm from slinging pizzas into an oven set on 500 degrees for fourteen years. Needless to say I don't have any hair on my forearms either. I do have hair on my legs, but that's because I am lazy and the stubble helps keep my work tights up.
I could shave my legs with my work tights on but don't want to put a run in my tights, they cost me a buck ninety nine at the Sock Shoppe. Heck... I could cut 'em with scissors but they keep me warmer in the cold winter months and skinny women need all the warmth they can get. I mentioned this entire line of reasoning to my husband one time. He sat silent for a moment and then simply said with a slow shake of his head, "Babe, you really know how to turn a man on."
I am pleased to announce (which makes me look even sadder) the thing I thought was a tick, then a mole, then a skin tag on my upper shoulder turned out to be a zit. I was elated!
You just never know when you start to get older, how much the little things will make you happy. Tim got up for work a few minutes ago to head into work and came downstairs to eat. I handed him my glasses and said to look at the spot that has been bothering me on my shoulder. He said, while standing in the kitchen in his underwear scratching his crotch... "Looks like a zit. It's got a head on it, just pop it" and continued to warm up some leftovers.
Getting older isn't pretty sometimes, but beats the alternative. Tim and I have been together over a quarter of a century. We started out dirt poor when TJ was two. We worked our way up to over six figures while having two more kids. We had a great life for years and years, then hit the skids.
We survived the skids too, with so much help the U.S. government should have contacted us to see how we managed , wanting to incorporate our method of survival into their own.
In the grand scheme of things, I'm doing okay. It hasn't been easy but there are tens of millions and then some who have it a whole lot worse.
My marriage has taken a hit, my kids have suffered through the hit but both are things that can be fixed. Tim and I still love each other and are committed. One day it will be easy street again and hopefully will look back and both say "Remember when..."
Having this new job has eased my stress level tremendously. Two days a week I don't sling plates but instead sling my forte'. (my PHD in BS) I can talk like nobody's business and after thirty five years of selling food know how to talk to people and make them feel good about buying a product from me.
Four days a week it's food, two days it's furniture.
I can't begin to tell you how much my tiny little body and worn out feet have enjoyed this change.
I have tomorrow off and what the heck, have decided to clean my house. It's more disgusting than my legs and feet. My thinking of late has been I have a seventeen and twenty year old living here and if they don't mind living in filth while I work two jobs, who am I to help clean the hovel?
I can think back years ago when I would clean the house. They were all babies. I would bust my ass for eight hours and then sit back with a glass of wine and breathe in the smell of a clean house. It smelled and felt delicious.
That's my goal for my day off. To sit back tomorrow night, look around my house and not be disgusted.
I'm a realist...if I get halfway there it will be a total success!
Til next time...COTTON
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