Tip-Toes

“Everything has a moral, if only you can find it.” -the Queen of Hearts



I do lots of awkward things on a pretty day-to-day basis. I unknowingly make weird and creepy facial expressions until someone points it out in bold and embarrassing ways. I sing passionately and do the "upper-body-dance" at the steering wheel until I notice the passengers in the car next to me joyfully laughing at the preppy chick belting out Sir Mix-A-Lot's Baby Got Back on the highway. My lips move silently along with TV characters as I sit in front of the tube (I have no idea why, and it creeps A LOT of people out). I lose my balance. I always hit my funny bone. I have recently began snorting when I laugh. As awkward as I am on a daily basis, there is one awkward secret that I have kept forever. Not many people notice it, and the people that do are extremely astute indeed. I walk on my tip-toes.

This plagued Claire when I was learning to walk. She brought me to my pediatrician, always with the same complaints, always fearing the worst: Were my leg muscles not growing correctly? Was I on the Autism spectrum? (Gee, thanks mom.) Would I need surgery to correct this obscene deficiency in my development? No, no, no. I just wanted to walk on my tippy-toes, damnit. Sheesh, can't a girl get a little support as she's learning how to teeter her chubby little behind around her playpen? Well, Claire finally let it go. She assumed I'd grow out of it. She assumed wrong.

To be honest, I didn't realize until college that this wasn't the way everyone walked. Someone noticed my mismatched, sock-wearing tippy-toes as I was walking to the lounge, and called my ass out on it. What the F? Sheesh, can't a girl get a little support as she walks to the lounge to scope out hotties? After this interaction, I called Claire up and told her to fill me in. Sure enough, I had been walking on my tiptoes for my entire walking-existence. Now things made sense. My insanely toned calf muscles were not just gifts from the heavens, unknowingly bestowed upon a gal who would rather call a cab for a 30 second walk than actually exert any energy. My staggering ability to wear KILLER high heels for upwards of 6 hours at a stretch without so much as flinching wasn't a talent I abruptly acquired when my addiction to ridiculous shoes manifested itself at age 17. My near-constant ankle/knee injuries made a little more sense now; I was simply putting the wrong emPHASis on the wrong sylLABle. Or rather, the wrong emphasis on the wrong muscle group that the normal person does when they walk. Innnnneresting.

This blog was born as much from Austin's pleas that the ridiculous happenings in my life be publically recorded as it was for my need to stop censoring myself. Lately, I've been struggling with doing and saying things in ways that conform to an image that I portray. Through an intensely beneficial conversation with Allie (another leading character in my life), I have realized that not even I can live up to the near-impossible standards I set out for myself. Perfection is boring, and plus, the idea of it gives me a stomachache.

When I was dabbling with the idea of blogging, I promised myself that I would let this be a platform for what I was going through at the moment that I sat down to write. When I was unloading groceries an hour ago, I was standing in front of the fridge, and noticed that I was standing on my tippy-toes as I was sorting through the bland produce that I've promised myself I'm going to eat this week. Of course I was standing like that, I always do. But in this instance, I saw my usual walk as a metaphor for something bigger than just an awkward way to get from point A to point B. How can I be surprised that I've literally tiptoed my way through life, when I have figuratively been tiptoe-ing through life as well?

My inability to express negative emotions has always gotten me into trouble. I don't like confrontation. I don't like hurting people's feelings. I don't like letting people down. But, what happens when my feelings are hurt and I'm let down? Usually, I swallow it, suppress it, ignore it until I forget about it. And I'm going to be a therapist? Yikes. But alas, this has been my choice for many years, and it has led to many frustrating lessons. Lessons that I probably would have learned much quicker and much less painfully if I had learned that it was okay to express crappy feelings in a healthy way.

This is what I mean when I say signs and symbols and guidance can be found in the oddest of places. Who would have thought walking on my tiptoes could have given me any insight into my present struggle that I'm trying to overcome? So this brings me to the promise I'm making myself to become more assertive. No more tip-toeing through life.

Figuratively, of course.