Boots

When the leaves started changing, I quickly discovered that keeping my feet dry during the ever present wet was going to be an issue.  I have strong feelings about wet socks, but Essex has equally strong feelings about Pumas in autumn.  In order to survive the Essex elements,  I was going to need something more substantial.  I needed a pair of boots.  

Unless you count the pair of cowboy boots I owned when I was five, I have never owned a pair of boots.  I have had hiking shoes and the like, but never a solid pair of pull-on boots.  A pair of boots that would give my Pumas second thoughts.  

So I started shopping.  I knew what I wanted–leather, slip resistant, weather proof Chelsea boots. After considerable time on shoe websites, I found a pair that ticked all of the boxes.  

When they arrived with my new wool socks, I put them on immediately and started stomping around.  As I was clomping around in them, I noticed I was taller, by two to three inches.  I immediately went to a mirror and not trusting what I was feeling, I had one of my kids help measure me.  Instead of the never-quite-six-foot 5’11”, I was now 6’ 2”. I felt taller–bigger. More certain. 

And when I took the boots off, I was back to normal 5’ 11” Curtis.  

But when I put them on…

Amanda had requested a sweet treat–an ice cream bar, Skittles, or M & Ms (peanut)--she wanted me to surprise her.  I pulled my boots on, stuck my Airpods in, queued up my music and set out.  

I noticed I was walking differently–straighter, with purpose.

Why am I just now noticing this?  

My new year’s resolution had been to start working out.  I had been working out about a month and while others may not have noticed, I noticed I was getting stronger.  The first time I flexed in the mirror and not only saw but felt a bicep I had never felt before gave me a charge. It was like a kid measuring their height and getting excited at every quarter inch.  Here I was, a man at 51, flexing in a mirror and genuinely surprised by what I was seeing.  

As I got stronger, I noticed my posture improving.  Keeping my back straight became natural.  My shoulders rolled back with my chest out became the new norm.  And it kept happening–I would put my boots on, I would be taller.  I would stand and feel my shoulders roll back.  A spark was catching.  I held my head higher and I felt…different.  

I was discovering confidence.  

I had confidence in other areas of my life, but this was different.  This was coming from somewhere I hadn't been before.

At 51, I was late to this.  I was learning to use and be present in my own space. The boots, the posture–they both gave me physical confidence. Amanda provided the rest.  

Ivy left for Aberystwyth last September and the house has since gotten quieter. For the first time in twenty-five years of marriage, it was just the two of us. We stood in silence and asked — what would we do?  Is there enough to do to fill a day with just the two of us?  Would we still like each other?  We were joking around, but we were dead serious.  

Slowly, we started finding our way–laying in bed at 10am watching TikToks together.  Walking to our favorite hole-in-the-wall noodle bar.  Sitting and just being–without having to say a word.  

And we started talking.  It started with day to day casual-existence talking but morphed into something deeper.  We started Really Talking.  We have spoken to each other for over a quarter of a century.  We have shared dreams, insecurities, fears, and disappointments.  We have had serious conversations in the past—kids, bills, life.  But this time there was an intimacy that hadn’t existed before.   

At first it was scary–I worried about saying the wrong thing and perhaps upsetting her.  I was self-conscious about how I might be perceived. The level of vulnerability this required was unfamiliar territory to me–the words, the feelings, the actions. I wasn't sure what opening up would do to me.

But I was ok. 

It got easier.  

Amanda did not care.  She saw me as she has always seen me–a whole, valuable, person that mattered.  And for the first time, I saw it as well.  This new confidence didn’t come from Amanda seeing me.  For the first time, I was confident enough to take up my own space and come face to face with the person she had always seen.

I was meeting Confident Curtis for the first time.  

And I knew what Confident Curtis wanted.  

She asked for another sweet treat–and a Coke Zero.

So I slipped my Pumas on, stuck my Airpods in, queued up my music and set out.  

And it happened again.

That same feeling–I was walking straighter.  I was walking with purpose.  I was occupying my own space.  

The boots had done their job.