Mind Altering

There are some times when you need to alter your mental state. After a long stressful week of work and kids and just life, sometime is helps to step outside yourself and let your brain have a break. Some people accomplish this with drugs or alcohol or meditation. Any of those can work, but one of my favorite ways is to take some time and get gussied up. Even if we are just staying home in front of the fireplace to watch movies, on those rare saturday nights when the kids are all gone, I like to get gussied up.

It is a bit ritualistic for me, and in that ritual I can shed stress find that altered state. After bathing and shaving- long slow strokes with the razor to remove leg hairs; after drying with the biggest fluffiest towels I can find, there is the act of getting dressed. I love old fashioned stockings and garters- slowly rolling the stockings up each leg, encasing them in stockings with interesting patterns. The material of the stockings both constricting and yet feeling incredible exposed and free in garters. Then there are the boots I love. I have knee high shiny black patent leather lace up boots. They are the old fashioned kind, with a dozen metal rivet hooks that have to be carefully wound and laced. You have to keep the tension on the lace steady and constant, or else they unwind and you have to start over. It is a slow process, they are as far from flip flops or velcro tennis shoes as you can get, but by the time you have them on and tied, there is no stress left in your shoulders, no tension fighting at the back of your skull and your brain has a completely different focus.

It is probably one of the silliest, girliest things I do, but very good Saturday night therapy for the soul.