On Socks and Spider Orchids

Socks triggered my existential crisis

Hey friend,

It was the socks that did it. Socks triggered my existential crisis. 

Apparently, you can discern between a Gen Z and a Millennial by their socks. Millennials wear ankle socks and Gen Z wear crew socks. 

I sit on the bed, look at my teeny tiny socks, and embarrassment nestles in my chest like a newborn. I don’t want to be like those Dads in the eighties who moved out to the suburbs and continued to wear their acid-washed jeans while the world moved on. But I don’t want to be like Regina George’s Mum in Mean Girls, trying so hard to fit in with teenagers. 

Photo by MART PRODUCTION

Some things, admittedly, I have no desire to wear. I am never, ever getting back together with low-rise jeans. I don’t want to wear spaghetti straps or boob tubes. I refuse to wear cargo pants. I don’t understand the baggy on baggy look. I’m petite, and it looks like I got into the dress-up box. A gift of my thirties is saying, “No,” to trends I don’t like.

There are some trends I will consider. Like, “Could I wear bike shorts and oversized tees?” (Yes). “Should I ditch the Millennial side fringe and get a centre part?” (Yes). Or, “Should I scrape my eyebrow hairs upward toward the sky?” (No). 

But other trends did not cross my worried mind. Like during my last pregnancy, the physio suggested wearing orthotics to help my pelvic pain. I thought, Aren’t those for old people?! Orthotics are where fashion goes to die. I would have said Crocs are where fashion goes to die, but this just goes to show that I don’t understand fashion these days. 

There are no articles about what shoes to wear with orthotics. No one wants to mention that they joined the Secret Society of Orthotics. So you can understand why it has become important to me to sort the socks. Find a middle ground between Eighties Dad and Regina’s Mum. 

I pester all my Gen Z friends. Women who look at me blankly when I sing the Captain Planet theme song. The magic answer? Half-crew socks. Ease into the half-crew with leggings and sneakers. But then I hear stories of the dreaded Sock Legging Gap where the half-crew is not quite tall enough to meet the bottom of the legging. The socks are too high to be Millennial and too low to be Gen Z. It’s the no-mans-land of socks. No one wants the mortification of being exposed as a Millennial who doesn’t know how to do socks. 

Part of me wants to opt out entirely. Flip the finger to the entire beauty industry and stop worrying about socks. They only want to make money. What better way to do that than making everyone throw out all their socks? 

I want to turn off the siren song, “Look like this then you will be loved.” I don’t want the beauty industry to suckle at my insecurities. And now with AI, we aren’t even comparing ourselves to supermodels, we’re comparing ourselves to women that literally do not exist. 

I recently had the pleasure of an outdoor church service on a bright, cool spring morning at Red Hill in the Stirling Ranges. After singing and prayer, the tiny congregation, including my husband and two older boys, climbed up the hill. I stayed at the bottom with Thomas and a few older people. After I nestled Thomas in the pram to sleep, I tramped through the bush with my father-in-law looking for wildflowers. 

The scraggly trees were grey and the bushes pointy. Even in spring, the bush was not lush or green. But I looked closely around my feet and saw delicate, tiny wildflowers. They seemed too dainty to be out in the stark Stirlings. There was eggs and bacon, all peach and blush; pure white spider orchids with purple pollen; deep gold wattle, and pastel yellow cowslips. And so many flowers we did not know the names for, adorning the leaf litter in variegated purple, pink, gold, white, and blue. 

The beauty industry whispers that I need to wear the right things, apply the right potions and lotions, and only eat the right things to contort myself into the image of a woman who does not exist to earn love. But I remember that nothing can separate me from the love of God (Romans 8:35-39). Not flat feet, nor hypermobile joints, nor the wrong socks, nor frizzy hair, nor overlapping teeth, nor the twin lines of consternation in between my eyebrows will be able to separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

If this is how God makes the wildflowers, that are here today and gone tomorrow, I can enjoy these good gifts from his hand. I can enjoy beauty because it points to him. I don’t have to worry about tomorrow and what my socks say about me. I don’t have to go full Amish, but I can just enjoy beautiful colours and silhouettes. I can’t add a minute to my life, despite what the beauty industry whispers, but I can delight in the wildflowers. 

And maybe I can delight in crew socks. 

Tell me in the comments (or hit reply to this email):

1. What is something that you refuse to wear?

2. What is a trend that you thought you would hate but have come to love? (For me, it’s Birkenstocks)

3. Are you on Team Birkenstock or Team Crocs?

4. What is something you are learning about beauty?