Best Foot Forward

I hauled out the ironing board and plugged in the iron – I needed to give my volunteer t-shirt the once over before I put it on. I’m a stickler for pressed clothes, even blue jeans (not creased – just pressed, I don’t go completely overboard). God forbid we leave the house looking rumpled.

My obsession with pressing things started with jeans when I was in high school. I have freakishly long legs – I could press an extra inch of length out of my jeans if I ironed them while they were still wet. I could make them long enough to brush the tops of my shoes – my socks only winked occasionally while I was climbing stairs.

The fetish for ironing continued and expanded to include t-shirts when my children were small. I used to buy most of the kids clothes on the cheap – we didn’t have a lot of money in those early years and my children had yet to discover name brands or trends. Cheap clothes are easier on the budget but generally come out of the dryer looking like a laundered Kleenex. A quick swipe with the steam iron and they could look like 3.99 again. I ironed everything.

It’s all about putting your best foot forward – a message that was hammered into me repeatedly when I was growing up. It was always important to wear a smile on your face and polish on your shoes. It didn’t matter what else was happening; how insecure you felt, how unhappy you were; it was imperative  that the rest of the world think everything was hunky dory. Which it was…. almost most of the time.

My mother worked at putting her best foot forward all her life. She sewed buttons back on blouses, hemmed skirts with invisible stitches and ironed the hell out of everything – even dad’s cotton hankies. We were all spit and polished before we walked out the front door.

Mom put great importance on creating a good impression — us kids were a reflection of her and she took pain in making the reflection lovely. Our manners were as polished as our shoes – we could please and thank you with the best. We never put our elbows on the table, never yelled indoors, and almost never chewed gum while we walked (she wasn’t around ALL the time). We were an ideal, upwardly mobile family as far as the rest of the world was concerned. Behind our closed front door was a different story.

We were mobile alright, but more in an across direction than an upwardly one. I had lived in nine different houses, attended six different schools and left countless friends in our rear view mirror by the time I was fifteen. We were unsettled – but polished.  We made a great first impression.

It’s funny what sticks with you as you look back over time – I get the same sick feeling in the pit of my stomach just recalling a walk into an already established classroom as I did when I made the original walk. I can still hear the echo of the introduction the teachers would make, feel the eyes upon me as I made my way to a newly added desk at the back of the class, my face flushed with the prayer I wouldn’t trip.

People are always surprised to learn I’m self-conscious – my pressed clothes and practiced smile hide my insecurities. I’m seasoned at walking into a room cold, that doesn’t make it easier. I can rein in the shakes, square my shoulders and appear fully loaded with the confidence I wish I had. I can make myself do almost anything; I can give a eulogy without crying, toast a bride and sing off key while I do it, I can walk up to a stranger with a smile on my face – I’ve got this schtick down to a science.

I wish I could go back in time and tell the shy kid I used to be that everything was going to be okay. That she was learning skills that would serve her the rest of her life. That one day she would be ironing a volunteer t-shirt and marching herself into a nerve racking, awesome experience just because she had learned how to put her fear in a box and put her best foot forward.