I love how my father starred at me yesterday. It lasted only a few seconds but it was beautiful. I don't know but I think it told of love and a shock; the beautiful kind. Like he had never seen me in that way before and this goes way beyond my physical appearance.
I was my father's toy. Not the kind he petted. The good girl kind - the one who would sit at a place for hours when he asked me to and would never complain no matter how much my butt hurt.
So when he asked me never to wear high heeled shoes again so many years ago, I said I would never. This is so unlike my sister.
I had a few pairs back then. I had so many big ladies around me who gave me theirs some when they tired from wearing them, and the others, when they thought I needed to dress like some other young girls my age. I think I was about seventeen then.
But I woke up one morning to find that my father had thrown all my shoes away. I was the good girl and anger was nowhere around me.
He told me I was tall and I didn't need the shoes to look taller. And he said high heeled shoes were bad. That they gave hunchbacks. And that they stunted growths.
I was scared and for the few years that followed, I would be glad he threw them away.
A few years ago, I began to fancy high heeled shoes again. I didn't know how to walk on them anymore and even if I did, my father would never have let me.
I would wear my sister's to pose for the camera and that was always where it ended. I could barely walk five steps on them without almost falling down.
So yesterday when he was me wear one, it shocked him but that wasn't all of it. It was the way I walked and swayed. The confidence I carried. I didn't know he had been staring with a faint smile and I caught him.
I wore makeup too. It wasn't very heavy but my lips were covered in beautiful pink paint and I am sure it added to the shock and smile too.
My father recently started wanting me to up and go out there. To be confident and scream my presence every time I step into a place. To let black be and wear outfits more colourful. To be all the crazy that I am. But for a father who fought against all of these and more for over twenty years of my life. For a father who taught me reasons why they were never good for me, taking back his words seems very difficult for him. But he knows that I understand it and it gladdens his heart.
Although its not a very high heeled shoe but I wore one 'out' for the first in almost eight years and it felt so good. I went to church with my brother yesterday and I am glad he had some good laugh at all the times I made to fall.
I never intended to write a piece this long. I just wanted to write about how my father starred at me yesterday but stories always have their ways of making it into other stories.