Someone recently asked me, “When did you know you were a grown-up?” My knee-jerk reaction was something to the effect of, “Still waiting.” The long form answer is more complicated, because I’ve always thought that being a grown-up means filling some really big shoes. In my case, marabou mules, to be specific.
When I was about five years old, my mother’s three inch stiletto heel black marabou feather mules were the ultimate symbol of adulthood. Watch my mother clickety-clacking down the hallway I’d daydream about what colors I would buy, once I was old enough. Not that I had a true concept of what “old enough” was, but I figured when it was time, I would just know.
One night after my parents had gone out to dinner, leaving me in the care of my Grandpa Andy, I decided to sneak into my mother’s closet to test-drive the dainty slippers. Grandpa often napped in front of his black and white Zenith television and left me to my own devices, instead of really “watching” me. The arrangement worked pretty well for us, as I was a pretty well-behaved kid, who mostly got into dumb trouble. Stuff like using postage stamps as expensive adhesive when I couldn’t find tape and eating baby aspirin because it almost tasted like a 50-50 bar if you put a drop of milk on your tongue. The marabou slippers were a risk I was willing to take in the name of kindergarten adventure and possible dumb trouble.
Slipping into my best polyester Holly Hobbie nightgown and wearing mother’s red lipstick, I pictured myself sashaying down the hallway like a real grown-up in those mules as my auburn hair whipped from side-to-side. My vision didn’t include shag carpeting. The journey from the closet to the door was fine. It was that last step over the threshold onto the Formica that was my downfall. Literally, as I came crashing down against the oak hall tree … temple first.
Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom couldn’t compete with my primal wailing, and Grandpa Andy flew down the stairs like the California condor he’d just been semi-watching Marlon Perkins wrestle with on a cliff. He cleaned me up with mercurochrome (which made wounds look WAY worse than they really were, with red dye, which was totally cool) and quickly put my mother’s slippers back in the Adults Only section of the master bedroom closet. One thing my Grandpa was really good at, besides always having change in his pocket for vending machines and the ice cream man, was helping cover my tracks. Until I was eleven, most of my dumb trouble was between the two of us, keeping the number of spankings and punishments lower than absolutely necessary.
Despite the early insult-to-injury episode with the slippers, the thought of someday owning a pair of my very own “when I grew up” still popped into my head from time-to-time. The various rites of passage that I thought would indicate impending adulthood (like getting a drivers license, voting or buying my first cocktail) still never felt like the time to purchase the delicate slippers that had so represented being a woman to me. In addition, time had not been kind to marabou mules as they faded into the fashion background, becoming a quaint image of a bygone era, representing what every lady-of-the-house should have, but no self-respecting feminist would.
Never wearing anything but canvas sneakers in my youth, becoming part of the workforce only required wearing women’s high heels if an employer specifically requested it and they rarely did. Working mostly in music and television production for two decades it turned out that I never needed heels, plus in the 1980’s high-top neon sneakers were all the rage – lucky me! Nobody dressed like a grown-up! It didn’t help that the big shoulder pads of the 80’s also made me feel like I was still raiding mommy’s closet for clothes.
I look back now and realize I’ve spent a lifetime walking around in flat shoes and somehow those high heel mules still symbolize being a grown woman yet have not yet made their way into my closet. Here I am, peeking over the bedsheets at 50, having led a full life filled with enormous responsibilities including raising kids (and, truth be told, a husband) and the average American debt of Damocles hanging over my head – all things that put frown lines on the adult face – but I still question whether or not I qualify for mature footwear.
This year, my daughter graduates from high school, my son is a full-fledged teenager and my husband is showing his own glimpses of maturity (well, his AARP card says so). Maybe now I can justify those big girl shoes. Er, slippers. I have had my eye on a lovely pair of Daniel Green black kidskin slippers with 2” heels, figuring I’d start slowly and work my way up (nightmares of menacing carpet still haunt me). Before I know it, I’ll have one kid in college, another in high school and will fill out the forms for my AARP card. By then, barring the return of shag carpet, I figure it will be time for my very own red satin 3” heel marabou mules that will show the rest of the world, I’m obviously a grown up now.