Trying

We’ve gone back and forth on these shoes for almost a half-hour, and she still can’t decide. As she tries on the sandals one more time (never mind that they haven’t changed, color, size, or shape in any way since the last time she tried them on) I can feel my shoulders ratcheting up toward my ears, and a cold dislike creeping into my chest. 

But what if she was Katie, or my sister, or my mom? I would hope that someone would be patient with them, and I realize that every person I sit with to try on shoes, every person I meet on the subway, all my co-workers and bosses and friends, are all just going out into the world, looking for things, trying to get stuff done, and all of them do this with various degrees of faith that people will be nice to them, patient with them, kind and understanding, and so I take a breath, smile, and say, “So how do they feel?"