Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw may have spent much of her time running around New York City in her Choos and Manolo Blahniks, but she also wisely once said “Maybe the best any of us can do is not to quit, play the hand we’ve been given, and accessorize the outfit we got.”
Taking these words of wisdom and applying them to my limited spoonie life: I’ve found that the best accessory to pyjamas and lounge wear, is socks.
I have fun socks. Socks with cats and dogs on the toes with which serve as playful, friendly greetings to front door visitors. Cutesy socks, put the doorstep world at ease.
Then there are my colour block socks that look just as good on their own or peaking out of a pair of high tops. Colour block socks need no explanation. They announce to the world with the same brazen hutzpah as Samantha Jones, “Hello. My name is fabulous.”
I have sparkly socks too. To misquote Charlotte York—before she became a Goldenblatt—these socks say “I’m not dead. Let’s Disco!” Unfortunately these aren’t the most practical of socks, so I wheel these out only on special occasions such as Christmas and New Year’s Eve.
Occasions that call for a little extra sock game.
I have no idea how to wash them so I’m going to step into the confessional box and pretend you can’t see me when I say this: I simply rinse them in cold water and air dry them for a few days, before nestling them in my sock drawer next to a bar of soap in the hope that the fresh soapy anti-miasma will do it’s thing.
As an aside: I’m happy to discover that there is an actual song called “You’re Dead. Let’s Disco!” which I am adding to my funeral playlist, because 1) I’m a control freak, 2) when you’ve been sick for over a decade, you tend to think about these things, and 3) I don’t trust my other half to get it right… some things never change, like my cynical Miranda Hobbes personality.
But back to socks. I also own the gold standard, the Manolos of the sock world if you will; the pure cashmere sock.
You know the kind. They adorn the feet of influencers lounging around their houses looking effortlessly chic clutching large glasses of red wine while daring to wear white jeans, while cute young offspring wander around wearing matching outfits. And there’s just enough mismatching design elements that you just know they and their interior decorators put many design hours into making it look like this too was effortlessly thrown together so that everything—chicly of course—oozes with just the right amount of enthusiasm “Look. I’m not that different from you. If you buy these things tagged in my post that have been gifted to me, you too can look as effortlessly cool and chic as I do.” Basically what former socialite Laney Berlin from the baby shower episode would be doing if she was on Instagram.
Alas, like the mythic Mary Jane Manolos that Carrie found in the Vogue closet that were a size too small, I too discovered that washable cashmere socks are an urban sock myth. After ever so gently coaxing them into a lingerie wash bag—and putting them on a cold wash as instructed—they still emerged a size smaller, covered in a pox of pilled wool.
The irony was not lost on me: my costly cashmere socks as with all my other expensive endeavours to improve my health—like supplements, infrared sauna blankets, treatments, and that one time I built a four cornered shrine dedicated to Manon, willing him to take my ailments and inner scars, had failed miserably. Okay, I may have made up the Manon part, but the rest is all true.
Sadomasochistic that I am, I still have some cashmere socks lined up in my sock drawer like little ladies in waiting in anticipation of the day a spoonie royal like Lady Gaga, Sia, or Venus Williams should decide to pay me a visit, I will be suitably prepared.
For as Carrie Bradshaw never said, but might have if she were chronically ill, “When your life is at a standstill your sock game benefits.”
#SpoonieFashion #Spoonie #chronicallyill #Fashion #GravesDisease #Fibromyalgia #sjogrens #ChronicFatigue #ChronicFatigueSyndrome #bedbound #thisismetrying
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