Wonderbras, High Heels and Second Chance Gods

I just finished my once a year shopping trek. I have this theory that the reason God made the internet was for people like me who truly truly dislike the entire shopping experience. The parking of the car, the walking through over-full department stores, too-cheerful sales associates and most, most , most of all the dreaded fitting room.

I have arrived at that station in life when I can no longer deny the importance of a good fit and the wonderful affects of good underthings. As I now rapidly approach that amazing period of one's life that is so affectionally called "mid-life", I find that I pay more attention to garments and what they hide or change than I do about color or style.

My children, who usually accompany me (much to their dismay) on these fated trips are armed with the "Frump-O-Meter"...which is a sliding scale that determines how "frumpy" a garment or outfit may make me look. A "10" on this scale means I look like my mom on a bad hair day and a "1" means that I look like I could pass for a mere 35.

It wasn't always this way. I was once a care-free shopper and could, quite literally, but something right off that size 2 mannequin and wear it and look great. Now, I walk by those same mannequins and wonder what their mothers would think about their daughters showing off all that, uhm, plastic. I use to be able to shop for shoes with careless abandon, reveling in how high the heels were. Now, heels more than 1 inch threaten my balance in such ways that I fear for those standing around me. The "Frump-o-meter" is tough in this shopping category. It's just hard to imagine feeling beautiful in no-nonesense navy naturalizers, no?

The sales people don't help at all. I have recently left a "boutique" (translation: no sizes under 12 need shop here) in tears because nothing would fit. The stretchy halter dress that looked so adorable on the model rendered me a pear with a black rubberband stretched across its middle. It was too ugly to even contemplate leaving the dressing room. When I asked the sales person (who was a cute little size 6 at most) about the sizing of the dress, she replied, "A different style might be more forgiving." Which begs the question, "For what am I being forgiven and why?"

I think, though, there are other things at play here. Deeper things, more sinister things. I think for all this energy in trying to look young, I am really trying to make do. Make my life something it is not, make myself something that I am not anymore. I am no longer 21, thin as a rail with my life ahead of me. And with that realization comes more than a bit of regret. Regrets of roads not taken, regrets of roads that were. Perhaps the greatest understanding is that no one -- NO ONE -- gets to 41 plus and says, "wow, my life is perfect and I wouldn't change a thing".

I've been contemplating these life changes for some time, reading lots from those that are way more intelligent than I and have come up with little on the philosophy of life. In fact, I have come up with little on life at all. Which is the trouble -- what kind of philosophy is it if it is only good for the first half of one's life? If ever there is a time for a "do-over" a re-take or just a good old-fashion DELETE, it is at this stage of one's life. Did I really take the teaching option instead of the literature courses? Why didn't I travel to Spain with the Spanish Club when I had the chance? Why did I care so much about getting through college instead of just immersing myself in the experience of learning?

I find myself thinking a good deal about God these days. I wonder if He thinks of me. It's doubtful..what am I to Him? Why would I even register to Him with all the holy rollers doing all that good work out there? Moreoever, why would he care two figs about my life when there are far greater situations in the world. I'm no world traveler but one doesn't have to go far to be rendered speechless by the sheer luck that one has been born into by being a citizen of the US. I don't have stuff in my water. I don't have machine guns posted in my community. I don't have to cover my face with a cloth. I can write whatever I please here on this blog and all I'll get is benign neglect or a random curt commetn or two. Not like I'm taking my life into my own hands like in some countries.

I think I would like to get to know a "second-chance God". Y'know, someone that's been there with you and knows that you really don't do your ab crunches like you should. Someone that knows that secretly, you'd rather watch another re-run of "Law and Order" than go have quality time with your husband. I'd like to sit down and talk to a God who knew you in high-school and yet finds you remarkably more interesting now. I'd like to know a God who remembers the mess you've made of your life and saves the finger pointing. I'd like to get closer to a God that just celebrates when you make it out of bed to church instead of the one that I think I know more, which is the one that scowls because your twenty-minutes late.

If there is ever a time in one's life where a second chance is in order, it's now. It's here. I don't need a litany of the sins I've committed, I've got those engraved into the crevices of my soul. I don't need a checklist of the things that I've NOT gotten around to do, the weariness in my day reminds me all too quickly of that. And most of all, a second chance God wouldn't encourage me to "keep the faith for the sweet by and by". Y'know, I'm running out of time and I just might not make the sweet by and by. Whatcha got for me now? For here? For today? Tell me how to pay the mortage, get the kids to school, find dinner and some peace.

I left the mall with my meager purchases. Shopping use to bring such pleasure and fun. The cruel trick in life is that when you do finally have the funds to buy what you want, you realize what you want isn't in the store, on the mannequin or in the window.