My Purple Jelly Shoes

When I was about 7 or 8 years old, I begged my mom for jelly shoes.  She would humor my request by asking what I loved so much about a shoe made out of plastic.  I would see other little girls wearing them and I remember distinctly how badly I wanted those damn shoes.  One day long ago, in a now permanently closed department store that was named Riches, myself and my sister were shopping with mom and walked by a big wire box in the center of the aisle loaded with purple, blue and pink jelly shoes.  And these weren’t just any Jelly shoes… these had SPARKLES in them. That’s right, they were glitter jelly shoes. Sure, these shoes were about 8$ and made of hard non-bendable plastic that smelled like a combination of jet fuel and burning tires, but I NEEDED them.

I have a core memory of grabbing onto the edge of the box, wrapping my fingers around the wire and pressing my face into the open space to see better. It was filled to the brim with the much-coveted item and I stared in smelling that awful plastic smell while demanding my mom to, “STOP”.  That day was a special day, because after what felt like years of asking, my mom looked at me and my sister and said “ok… what color do you want”? I chose purple and my sister pink. I remember getting to the car and putting those babies on, only to find out shortly after returning home, how painful the little strips of plastic were on your bare skin. Ouch. “That’s ok” I said to myself, “it doesn’t hurt that bad”.  But they were, in fact, little torture devices. Did I take them off? Let’s just say little Nikki, much like grown Nikki, ain’t no quitter. Within a day, I had tiny cuts all over my baby feet from the seams of hard plastic. I lived my whole life to wear these shoes and I wasn’t going to let a little thing like pain or blood or raw open skin get in the way of this moment.  Subsequently, this is around the same time I started to understand my grandma always telling me that “it hurts to be beautiful”.  

The shoes had little strips of plastic all connected to make a sort of curling and winding design in the front.  Open gaps allowed for just enough skin to come through to cause an incredible amount of pain and suffering at each step.  The plastic around the heel was also sharp enough to slice right into my skin, giving me a sort of constant sharp ache.  But… who could focus on pain when there was a mini heal… and it CLICKED. When I tell you, I clicked those baddies all over any hard surface I could get to, even though slamming my heal down also meant a sharp pain would rip through my foot, I didn’t let that stop me.  No- these shoes were who I was now and who I was (in my head), was a sophisticated girl who with each click and clack on the kitchen linoleum said “watch me, I’m going places”.  Grandma’s words echoing in my head … it does hurt to be beautiful grandma.  She was so right.

My mom knew those shoes were useless and painful and I am guessing that up until then, this is why she told us we couldn’t have them.  But eventually, she saw the light in my eyes when I begged and she knew I was the kid that had to learn every lesson the hard way. I was also incredibly stubborn and she knew I wasn’t giving in any time soon.  So that day she let me get the shoes I had begged for during every previous shopping trip for weeks and weeks, the whole time knowing that the end result would be a pair of cheap shoes in my closet, that I never used. She was only mostly right though, because I used them for a solid week. I even wore them out once (wincing in pain every step btw) after my mom kindly suggested I wear something more comfortable.  She kept asking me if I was ok, and I would pretend not to know what she was talking about as I dreamed of sitting down and taking them off forever. But, my pride wouldn’t let me. I made sure I wobbled around that day, shoes on, while in my head I knew I wouldn’t ever wear them again. But it would be my choice.

After my mom passed, I kept having those purple and pink jelly’s pop into my head. I would be sitting at work and the memory would come of the day I got them.  For the longest time, I couldn’t figure out what it meant.  Why do I keep having this strong core memory coming back to me?  Until I finally realized what it meant to me.  That day, those shoes, my stubborn unwillingness to listen to reason, all moments where my mom chose to love me as I was.  This was the first moment, perhaps, that my mom realized that her daughter was headstrong and to learn my lessons, I would have to see, feel and recognize the full weight of my choices, instead of being told and trusting what the outcome would be.  My mom knew that I was a kid who wouldn’t just “take your word for it”. I was a kid who was going to see for my damn self. She saw me and she loved me the way I needed her to. “Oh I can’t do that … watch me…”.

Now, I’m not going to say that being headstrong is easy.  This trait of not taking people’s word for it, has brought me just as much pain as it has inspiration and freedom.  It has brought me as much failure as it has success.  But it’s who I am.  And so much of missing my mom, is wrapped up in her unconditional love and support of who I was and what I needed to feel right.  Who in this world, besides our parents if we are very lucky, can we say love us unconditionally?  The loss of that person in our every day lives, changes not only the way we continue to see the world moving forward, but it also started a process of self-reflection that I didn’t know would be a part of losing someone so important. I started reflecting on all of my little quirks and how difficult I was in certain ways and how my mom kept loving me and believing in me, despite them.  

The love of a parent, that was always so constant and present, that then turns invisible- it causes us to call on a faith that at times feels impossible to have.  We wonder, will anyone ever accept and love us the way this person did?  We start to question who we really are and what things will mean moving forward, as if their belief and love in us is what made it all real.  The challenge is in the knowing.  In trusting a lifetime of love and energy doesn’t just disappear when their physical self does and even more, that we are the hyped-up humans they made us believe we were.

Those purple jelly shoes were not just a gift to me to wear, they were my mom saying “I think I know how this will go, but I am going to let you try it out anyway”. It seems like a small thing. It’s not. Despite all the bullshit I put my mom and dad through in my teenage years and beyond, they never judged me. My mom had her opinions and let me know them, but she never,ever, got in my way. My choices were made to feel like my own and because of that I learned valuable lessons that carried me into my adult years. One of those lessons being, don’t buy jelly shoes because those little f&*kers hurt.

This is how we go through it people, one little painful baby step with jelly shoes on at a time.

Love, Nikki