SEXY SIXTY

I was in the shoe store rummaging through dress shoes on a discount table when I spied the perfect pair: pearly off-white that cast rainbow reflections if held in the right light, delicate straps and a three-inch heel. Would they have my size? I was feeling giddy, thinking how well the shoes would look with my new dress—the whole reason for this shopping trip.
I bent over to slip the heels on, Cinderella-like, then straightened to a standing position to admire my “delicate” foot in the mirror. I was unprepared for what I saw. You see, I don’t often look that far down my body or very closely either, and was shocked at what met my eye: a web of bluish-purplish skin crisscrossing varicose (very-close) veins starting at my ankles and meandering up my calves like a world map. Disappointed was putting it mildly. Those legs didn’t match those shoes, but I bought them anyway. Vanity does that to a person. I told my hubby, then, about my reaction and said, “I prefer to think of those marks as ‘love marks’,” because they’d made their ugly appearance during my pregnancies.
The shoes turned out to be a bad buy. The three-inch heel was a wee too high for this gal and after a few hours of wear, the toe straps left my foot feeling strangled and red. But vanity requires sacrifice, I figure.
Three days ago my hubby came back from a week-long trip. As he unpacked he animatedly told me all about what he’d done and who he’d seen, but every so often he’d stop, look at me and say, “Umm, your legs look good!” (blush, blush) Suddenly, he caught me in his arms, murmuring tenderly in my ear, “I remember seeing those legs when you first walked on campus,” (referring back to our Bible school days.) I giggled like a teenager and decided right then I had a jewel in my arms and I better believe every word he said.
Yes, sixty can be sexy after all.