Finding Myself

I don't know if it was the stress of having two kids and wanting more, or the 14 moves I have had to endure, or the stress of getting Greg through 100 years of school, but somewhere I lost myself. I don't know where I was. I think I packed myself up in a box and put it in storage for awhile, or maybe I never came home from the hospital after Kameron was born, but I was nowhere to be found, well... until recently.
The MALL, I haven't been there in years! When you live off student loans, there really isn't money for the mall, but Lo and Behold, there I was, at the mall.
I started wandering in and out of the stores, making a purchase here and there, you know, for Christmas, t hat is coming up you know, and I started to get really comfortable. I had a spring in my step, I gained a little confidence. I turned the corner and there it was, in its all too familiar black block lettering. NORDSTROM. Now, we used to be really good friends, but we lost contact over the years, so I thought I would pay her a little visit.
I wondered through the department store, browsing through multiple racks of clothing. I made a little visit to the MAC counter and picked up a few of my favorite shades of days gone by. (I picked up a few new ones too! SO cute!) Then, as if it were calling me, I made my way to the shoe department. Oh, the shoes. Immediately, I made a beeline for a cranberry patent leather pump. They were beautiful, but they were also $175.00. I loved them, but hated the price, and the salesperson talked me in to trying them on. So I did, and they were HOT! So hot that I wanted to try a different size. As the salesperson went into the back room to fetch my request, I sat there, in my cranberry colored shoes, staring at myself in the mirror. I had a few minutes to think. I remembered this Andrea, this one, who wore hot shoes, who went to the mall, the one who had all the confidence in the world and set out long ago to conquer it. It reminded me of the movie Hook, where the little boy distorts Peter Pan's face until he made him smile, and then in the most heart warming, tender way, said, "Oh, there you are Peter." That was me, and I recognized her sitting in that chair, and I teared up a little bit. Embarrassing I know, but this Andrea didn't care what others thought of her, so I was OK with it.
I made a decision, right then and there, that I was taking old Andrea back and I am introducing her to the Andrea I have become. We decided we are keeping all the good things (friends, both old and new, family relations, things like that) and wisdom (testimony, mothering instincts, and things like that) we have gained over the lost years and throwing out all the bad things to become ME again.
The salesperson came back with the new size I had requested, I sat there with a little smirk on my face, happy with the divine revelation I had just received, and I am sure that she thought that I had decided on buying the shoes. The Andrea of old would have in a heartbeat, but remember, I have gained wisdom in my years, and I DID just reinvent myself, but those shoes were cranberry patent leather high heels for $175.00, and I live in farm country now. Where was I ever going to wear them, to the post office? So I politely declined, and put my new friends back in the box where I am sure they are anxiously waiting to slide themselves on somebody else's feet and make them feel like a million bucks too. I walked out of there empty handed and drove home to my family where our future looks like it's going to be pretty darn good.