“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.”
-Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own
Last night as I walked in the door, kicked off my old boots, and collapsed onto the couch at 8 pm still clutching a large black bag to my chest with rain-soaked hair and coat my son looked at me like I was a creature from the mist. Lately, my days are calculated by what deadline is looming, ticking off the number of hours to accomplish said project, with not a single social outing on the calendar until the end of November. In the midst of my sprinting towards the finish line of these projects since last February (when I started my business full-time), an interesting shift has happened in the interior spaces of my mind and well, I suppose my heart too.
I’ve stopped thinking of men entirely and it is quite wonderful. I realize, when I had more time, I day dreamed a lot about them. They took up huge residence in my brain. If I likened it to a house, they would have had the living room, dining room, upstairs bedroom (for sure the biggest one) and of course some man-cave space in the basement. I shared my house with ghosts of men who weren’t actually living there, a sort of spooky real-estate deal that left the culture of my life devoid of my own true self.
Yesterday I decided step more fully into my own life, and owned it as it had always wanted to be owned.
The fact is, for years I have been running around in crappy Zeller’s boots, always cringing when I put them on, feeling bad about my life as I wore them, ashamed of my single-mother status (read: poor), and thinking, next year, next year, I’ll get a really good quality pair of boots. As I walked to the Skytrain station after a long day of a Transmedia conference, I passed by a gorgeous shop called Modern Vintage (couldn’t find a site for them but they sell on Shopbop). I saw a little hand drawn sign that said ‘hand-made’ hanging on the door. Yes. Let’s get hand-made instead of Zellers.
I wandered the shop. Everything was incredibly expensive but…beautifully, lovingly made. I found a pair of boots and tried them on. They fit perfectly and felt like expensive, hand-made shoes should feel: delicious, sexy, special.
A voice in my head whispered: Be who you want to be now.
Silence. I looked at them in the mirror and remembered where I was last year, and thought about where I was now.
I realized in that moment that I was being who I wanted to be: an entrepreneur creating art, writing, making money, living in an urban setting. What was missing? A boyfriend? Yes, I suppose. but suddenly it wasn’t on my list anymore of being who I wanted to be. It was time to buy the boots. They were who I was now.
I’m eternally grateful to my last relationship because if I hadn’t had that experience, I think I would still have other people living in my psychological house. Don’t get me wrong, my head still turns when I smell certain cologne’s pass by me, but my desire is on building my own house, with a room where I can write, and decide what happens inside that space and perhaps more importantly, what doesn’t happen in that space.
The door is closed at the moment to relationships, but I know the right person for me would find a creative way in. For now, I’ll be walking a little more confidently (and comfortably) in these beauties.
Triple stitched, custom detailed, embossed sole, soft as cashmere. I’ll wear them forever.
Margaret Doyle 