Flame Panda Monkey Boot

So, let me get the trite part out of the way now. These Flame Panda 102 monkey boots that I wore almost daily for the last six months were perhaps the only consistent part of the last six months of my life. I realize that change in itself is a constant, and of course, the progression of wear in my boots, is in itself change, but I knew that whatever happened in a given day, I would put on these boots, which I left at the corner of my work desk for this purpose. Most days I put them on around 5:30-6 am to walk my dog Bonnie and took them off around 1 or 2 in the afternoon, when the support of wearing 8-inch boots made with Shinki leather while writing at a computer began to feel confining. But while I wore them, I felt supported and weirdly powerful. There's something about being a 57-year-old woman in a world where older women are expected to be invisible (and where older women tend to believe that narrative) that felt like a big "Fuck you" to conventional notions of who we are supposed to be. My Flame Pandas announced that yes, I will be noticed, and good luck having footwear half as hot as mine! I really wanted to write more, but I’m tired. In the last six months, I’ve been laid off, been rehired, sustained damage to my house caused by a faulty roof that was installed months after I joined the Discord in 2020, celebrated my parents’ 60th wedding anniversary, watched Bonnie age dramatically, so that I worry about her every time I look at her. I now have a herniated disk and am facing surgery in the near future. But during that time, my boots evolved, with rolls forming above the ankles and the toes curling up like crakows (in my mind, not really). While it would be great to win a prize, I didn’t enter this contest expecting any glory (because really, I work a remote white collar job in LA, which is a handicap in this context). But I did get what I had hoped: evidence of a life lived—maybe not well but good enough.