You know how sometimes when you can’t decide which way to go you end up going nowhere?

That’s how it’s been for me the last few days. I have a poem taking shape based on an idea born New Year’s Day, and I have another idea that I woke up with a few days later. I tried to see if I could combine them but that just didn’t work. So I’m trying to work on two separate posts (possibly poems) one at a time but neither is ready for anyone else’s eyes just yet. So that’s my excuse for not putting out a Sunday Post yesterday. That and the whole shoe polish situation.

Like many others around this time of year, I’ve been re-organizing, sorting, and purging: my kitchen, the office, and of course, my closet. It was already pretty organized but the floor needed some attention. Over the years I’ve managed to accumulate a lot of boots. Some of these I wear regularly, but others get less use and there’s one particular pair that I’ve only worn (maybe less than) a handful of times. They’re very tall, very heavy, very sexy, and very expensive. I hate to see them just taking up space in my closet but I know that the likelihood that I will ever wear them again is very small. I found an upscale consignment shop that I’m going to contact to see if they will take them but I decided they needed a little bit of polish. Since the person who used to kindly polish all my shoes and boots is unavailable, I ordered a shoe polish kit and decided I would give all my other shoes a little bit of TLC.

Saturday afternoon I dragged them all out of the closet and set up shop in my living room. First up: the tall, black boots. First problem: opening the #%&* can of shoe polish! Would you believe I had to look up a YouTube video to figure it out? I knew I need to use the little metal lever on the side but for the life of me, I couldn’t get it open. After struggling for a bit even once I knew what I was doing, I finally got the black polish open.

I spent the next hour or so working on my boots with a cooking show on in the background. I finished up the three or four pairs of black boots and prepared to move on to brown. However, even knowing the trick to open the can, I could not get the brown polish open. I banged it, squeezed it, wrapped my fingers in a cloth, tapped it with the brush, to no avail. My fingers were hurting and my nails breaking. I think I was beginning to lose the fingerprints on a couple fingers. I looked up at the time and decided to call it a day. I was due at S’s for dinner and still had to change my clothes and wash the black polish off my fingers. This mess was going to have to wait.

S laughed when I told him about how I’d spent the last couple of hours. I was getting ready to leave his place the next day and tackle the polish project again and he offered to come by and open the brown polish for me. I thanked him for the offer and told him I would get back to him. I walked into my place a little while later and as I was taking off my coat I looked at the mess in my living room and had an idea. Leaving my leather gloves on I picked up the can of polish and got it open the first try.

Now maybe it’s because I’d already loosened it or maybe it was the extra padding on my gloved fingers, but I got an enormous sense of satisfaction when it popped open. I immediately sent S a picture to let him know I would not be needing his help. I sat down and finished my clean-up project and put them all back in the closet (minus the pair headed to the consignment shop).

When I did see him later for dinner (my turn to cook) he asked me how long I was home before I picked up the polish. It was probably not much more than 30 seconds. He told me that this tells him a lot about me.

I’m not sure what this told him, but I think it says that I’m a stubborn and determined Taurus and I wasn’t going to let a little can of shoe polish get the best of me. Sometimes I stick with something much longer than I should maybe, but for the most part, I tend to keep at it until I get the result I want. Sometimes though that stubborn streak prevents me from seeing something that might be clear if I took a step or two back. And sometimes that perspective you get by stepping back makes it clear that it’s time to let it go and move on.

I’m not stepping back from those darn macarons yet though! It might be time to give them another try.