Self Portrait Tuesday

When I was a teenager, I thought my feet were so ugly, most especially my toes. My mother had size five feet and my grandmother had size five-and-a-half, mine were enormous at size eight. And my mother's feet looked like they came straight off of a greek sculpture - delicate, elegant, slender. I so envied her feet. Well, truth be told, I envied pretty much everything about her - she was like a greek sculpture - she was so very beautiful and elegant and I was so not like her. My older brother used to tell me I was adopted, and I really believed him.

Here's the silly thing, though. One day, when I was thirteen and outside in my grandmother's gardens, I was looking at her sculpture of St. Francis - who I greatly admired (being a catholic school girl, I may have had a bit of a crush on him - I mean - he could talk to animals! How cool is that?). At any rate, I happened to notice that his second toe was longer than his first toe - just like mine! I was so happy that day. I didn't care so much that my other toes were stubby or that my feet were enormous - suddenly with that longer second toe - they didn't look quite so ugly to me. I felt almost pretty. It's funny what small things can take on so much meaning when you are caught up in the throes of being a teenager.