I thought my made it moment would be the day I typed with manicured nails, one hand on the keyboard and the other holding my Starbucks coffee like the French hold cigarettes. Then entered the shoehorn. A woman using a shoe horn is a boss. The fact that she’s using a shoehorn tells you that her shoes aren’t easy to fill (you really got to squeeze in there). It takes her a bit longer to put on her shoes, yes, but she puts them on with a little more intention than your average Joe. When you see it emerge from her top desk drawer, you can assume she’s prepared to conquer the day. So yes, I have a shoehorn. Have I made it? I’m not sure, but in those seconds I spend putting on my shoes, it sure feels like I have.

Your most intimate moment with a stranger occurs when your brain says walk and your feet stay stuck. You’ve initiated the face-off ritual. Your eyes are locked and you mimic each others' every move, like a sibling-rivalry game of copycat. You so desperately want to pass but you instead shift your weight from side to side. You know you have to make a move. You can either charge—commit to a side and risk contact—or you freeze—close your eyes and stand still. I’m more of a what-I-cannot-see-cannot-hurt-me kind of a person, so naturally, I choose the latter. I was waiting for the elevator when an unsuspecting man tried to exit through the opened doors. I moved back and forth about seven times, if not more, unable to decide whether allow his passage on my right or left side. Finally, he moved forward and I, the block to his passage, was forced to make myself small to avoid contact. He moved on as I stood still in this trying test of fight or flight. Good move, man in elevator, good move.

A robe is a sanctuary. It’s somewhere between your most clean state (presumably in the shower) and the day’s makings on your body (those self-inflicted like makeup and mustard stains, and then the usual—smog, air pollution, the germs of others). Best of all, it’s a judgement-free zone. Just as you wouldn’t judge an unfinished masterpiece, the door-to-door salesman cannot scrutinize your pre-constructed state. I’ve been living in the same robe for 15 years. It entered my life as the garb of Mary the Mother of Jesus in my grade three play (the non-speaking role bestowed to me for reasons unknown), it carried me through university to the dismay of my roommates, and it hangs in my bathroom now. It’s unlike me to turn down a present, but there's no replacing my bleached, pill-covered sanctuary. Sorry mom—you brought it into this world and you’ve got to live with it