free to be

Tonight was ladies night. The instructions were simple: dress in comfy clothing; bring your favorite nail polish, a bath basin for the pre-pedicure soak, and a towel.

First thing first...
get home and do a quick shave up to the knees so that if I must roll my pants up, no one will be mortified. Second: find my favorite nail polish. Quite simple, considering I have one lonely bottle...one lonely, clumpy, 3 year old bottle-which for this night only, will bare the title of 'favorite' because it has no competition. Third...the bath basin. This proved to be most challenging. Kyle and I stood in the garage and surveyed our options. There was the cooler-our red, trusty sandwich and drink toting cooler which was about the right size but I was sure I would be terribly ridiculed. Then, there was a tall tuperware container that holds all of our paint supplies. Too much trouble. We settled on a smaller tuperware bucket...it wouldn't exactly fit both of my feet at the same time but considering my options it seemed the most worthy choice.
Last but not least, i was ready to tackle the subject I am most familiar with: "wear comfy clothes".
10 minutes later, I stood before Kyle clad in my pink furry slippers; bright green hospital scrub pants, and in my beloved gray, red lettered wisconsin t-shirt. With my not-so-pedicure friendly bucket, & my expired nail polish in tow I could tell he was struck silent by the 'woman' in me.
yeah. i'm positive that's what it was.

I arrived at church and sat in the parking lot, wondering if I was at the wrong place. There were a lot of people on the main floor that I didn't know and I was beginning to second guess my wardrobe selection. I called Kyle to confirm: yes, yes, I was in the right place...which could only mean we were meeting upstairs; past the people. right, then. I got out of the car, grabbed my bucket and gave myself a silent pep talk: Walk like you are proud of the slippers; own the slippers, Megan; afterall, it IS spa night.
I ever so nonchalantly breezed through the front door, smiled, and flashed my bucket as if to say, "it's spa night, please don't judge me".
I, then, scurried upstairs.

My ladies were gathered together in a small room, pants rolled up, naked feet at the ready. There, resting in the middle of all the spa luscious activity, in the midst of yummy lotions and scrubs and high tech foot soakers...sat a blue cooler. Someone's chosen bath basin.
Suddenly, my slippers and I seemed to fit right in.

As she soaked her feet unapologetically in the cooler, I borrowed a new shade of polish and let spa night, in all of it's glory, soak in. There was a place for each of us in that small circle of ladies. Those with the high tech soakers, soaked alongside those with the buckets and the one with the cooler. :)
We were women-being women; without apology.