Every person who knows me well, and who has seen my laundromat photos, asked me the same question:
Were you freaking out to be barefoot at your photoshoot?
The answer to the question is, “YES! I WAS TOTALLY FREAKED OUT!”
I sincerely do struggle even with the idea of dirty feet and hands — and that’s me talking, not my spirit animal, Juanita! I’ve never been officially diagnosed with OCD, but when it comes to my feet, I’m hyper-vigilant about their cleanliness. But on the day we did that photoshoot, the spirit of those photos took over, and there was something so natural and honest about moving around the laundromat as if it were my own home — and, as if the floors were sterilized with an antibacterial, antimicrobial cleaning solution (which they clearly were not!)
But whether I was sitting on the floor, or tip-toeing around the laundromat, a certain kind of joy came over me as I thought about how blessed I am to have learned to let a few things go in my life. The ability to let my guard down and get a little messy is new for me, and it’s rather liberating — in small doses, of course.
But when I look at this photo of my dirty foot, I still have this happiness in my heart because getting dirty was fun, and…it didn’t kill me! And, even if that OCD part of me will never completely go away, I know how blessed I am that I get to live in a reality where I can always find a way to make “dirty feet clean again.”
