Courage x 2: skinny jeans and disability

Jeans, top, and coat: Reitmans; Backpack: Mountain Equipment Coop; Boots: Ecco; Brooch: vintage

On this day, I did something rather brave: I went downtown by myself. It's not the first time I've done it since my injury, but it's never easy. It sounds like nothing to the able-bodied but it is an act of courage for me because I know it will cause me pain -- and I never know how much pain, or how quickly the pain will take over, or how long it will take me to recover.

Admittedly, I took a taxi on the way there but I stayed there for a long time, and I took transit home. Thus the backpack, containing my foldable cane, something I generally only use on transit now. If I'm carrying any real weight (i.e. about the weight of a half carton of milk), I have to use the backpack; it's not very stylish, but it's necessary. Lopsided weight, carried in one hand or over one shoulder increases my pain very quickly.

Ring: I can't remember; Earrings: vintage

I bought this ring many years ago, as a reward for myself for having saved absurd amounts of money in my first year as a college teacher. It was $45, a complete splurge in my mind. I'd been very poor for a very very long time and really didn't even know how to spend money.

I found the earrings a few weeks ago at the Salvation Army for $10. They're a perfect match for the ring! I'm pretty proud of this find.

White gold and diamond ring: Birks; Gold sleeper: a shop whose name I forget

I bought this white gold and diamond ring from Birks a few years after I bought the other ring. I'm not going to tell you how much I paid, but suffice to say that, by then, I understood what a real splurge was.

In the photo on the left, I'm on transit, holding my cane, a necessity that seems a bit less odious when the hand holding it is bedecked with beautiful rings. A little sparkle improves any day.

Ring: a present from Beau

I also wore the lovely coral ring that Beau gave me. I wear it on days when I especially want to be reminded of the fact that I am loved, so, even though I don't usually wear yellow and white gold together, I wore it this day and I think it worked. It certainly worked to warm my heart.

As usual, what I was wearing affected how I saw the world around me. As with the other day, I wore a deep, royal blue, but this time it was accented by a rusty red/orange.

It's not a combination that I would have thought of myself but I suddenly realized that it's the same combination that my neighbour's used on their house, a house I've been admiring for years. When their garden is in bloom, even the flowers are coordinated with the house. It's just beautiful. Yet I'd never really thought about the colours they'd chosen to combine -- until I wore this shirt.

This blue is beginning to grow on me. So are my new curves (pun sort-of intended). Beau is always telling me to love and even flaunt them. I'm slowly learning to see their appeal.

Beau's even been telling me that skinny jeans would work well on me but I didn't believe him. "But I'm curvy," I said.

"That's the whole point!" he said, as if I'd suddenly lost several IQ points. Couldn't I see the obvious? Well, no, I couldn't.

 

But it turns out that he was right. I'll tell you, though, that buying and then wearing skinny jeans has been an act of courage of another type, so I was brave twice over this day.

Yay me! Body image and disability, stared down in one day.

And just why did I get all brave and go downtown, you may ask? That's a secret for another day. For now, I'll only say that the answer is very very sparkly indeed!