My "Lucky" Margarita Socks

Some years ago a friend bought me a pair of cycling socks. It wasn't that I was into cycling and needed socks (We were incidentally buying bikes that day also, a bike I seldom, if ever, rode). It was more about a cute pair of socks and my love of margaritas. The socks, of the ankle high variety, have a margarita glass on the ankle and the words "It's 5:30 somewhere" on the sole. My friend thought they were perfect for me. I thought they'd be my lucky socks. You know, the socks you wear when you need little extra luck, like a big day at work or a first date. That kind of thing. I seem to recall almost immediately putting them into action.

Look, I'd never been what I would call a "lucky person." I seldom won games of chance (even games involving skill are a crap shoot); I could literally scratch twenty $1 lottery tickets and win absolutely nothing; historically the pretty girl chose to sit next to someone else (I mean that only slightly figuratively). It's not that I was unlucky. I mean weirdly negative happenstantial things rarely befell me. I don't feel like I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, per se. I just never seemed to be in the right place at the right time with the winning lottery ticket and invariably the person standing right next to me would find the four leaf clover (All metaphors aside, the latter has actually happened). I figured anything - even a pair of so-called lucky socks - might help.

They didn't. Never. Not even once.

I didn't wear them often. Nope. I mean what if they only held so much luck and I wore them and washed them too often? (For the record, I did wash them after each use). Or what if I "cried wolf" and wore them when I really didn't actually need luck? I chose to pick my moments with the socks,  and more often than not, those moments involved a woman. A first drink I hoped would become more; an actual first date; the night I hoped "we need to talk" meant something positive for a change. Those socks were on my feet for all of the crucial moments of my dating life for nearly ten years.

Long term blog readers are nodding knowingly yet ruefully right now; they are fully apprised of my dating history. For those of you who are a bit newer on the scene, "disaster" might be too strong a word but only by a scooch. And look, I'm not blaming it on the socks. Nope. I take full responsibility for each and every misstep (Ok, the gas lighting might have been somewhat outside my control). I chased the wrong women, allowed myself to be led astray, and got involved when I never should have. No amount of luck would have changed that. For some reason, though, hope continued to spring eternal. One day those socks were going to live up to their name. One day my luck would change. 

Fast-forward to February 2020. I'm getting ready for what I'm reallllly hoping will be my last first date. It's just a phone date my friends tell me. Just? Just????????? Um yeah, there's no just here. Not in my mind anyway. No exaggeration, the absolute entire remainder of my life hinges on this phone call; this one phone call. Yes, it's a phone date so feasibly I could wear my pjs and not shower; she won't be able to see me. However, I learned long ago that it's best to dress sharp on game day. I might look like a slob in a CrossFit tank top and backwards ball cap in practice, but that is NOT what I'm wearing in a match. So, I choose my favorite jeans and half-zip (Y'all know me, right?), shower, wash my hair, and spritz on some perfume. Then I open my sock drawer and search for my lucky margarita socks. I mean this is the Big One, the one I need to summon up all the luck that's never quite worked in my favor and somehow finagle it to actually work in my favor. If there was ever a moment for a lucky rabbit's foot or pair of socks, this was it.

I sit on my bed with socks and shoes at the ready. I unfurl the socks, look at the little margarita glasses, and read "It's 5:30 somewhere," much as I have done every time I've worn them. Then I ponder their history as my "lucky" socks and realize, for probably the first time, that they haven't quite lived up to their moniker. I ball them back up, return them to my sock drawer, and choose another pair. I put on the new pair and slip into my shoes. I'm ready and, even without the socks, I'm good. Oh, nervous to the point of shedding my skin, but determined that today - this moment, this phone call - is when my luck changes. 

Fast forward again to May 2020. Yes, there's been a pandemic. Nothing can be classified as "normal" anymore, the world has gone completely nutty, and I've been both "essential" and sick (and recovered...for the most part). All that said, I wouldn't trade one second since that first phone call back in February. Everything has led to right now - this moment, where I am, where she is, who we are. I'm writing this - typing these actual words - sitting cross legged on her couch. If I look up, to the loft above me, I can see her. There is a peace within me unlike any I have ever imagined possible. 

You see, I never needed a lucky pair of socks. I was never in the right place at the right time before because this is what was waiting for me. When I stopped searching for the four leaf clover, I found so much more than luck. I found love.

***I still have those socks, but I think it's time to get rid of them. Occasionally  I worry that they are the inverse of lucky, that they bring me bad luck. I dunno. Superstition isn't always an easy thing to let go of. After all, I still own voodoo dolls I've never been brave enough to throw away.***