Dear Universe,

Do you remember ankle tans? The ones we use to get unintentionally because we wore white (but mostly off-white) socks with our white (but really, brown) school shoes?

Remember when we turned 17 and we were done with the school-uniform life? We embraced cute skirts and shaved our legs and moisturized religiously. We squealed when we saw strappy shoes and anklets.

Then the realization hit us as we strutted our stuff for the first time. We had ankle tans. A very visible line that exposes the paleness of our feat and our tan calves.

We displayed our naivety that we were just out of our uniforms and had no business trying to make our mark into the real world.

This made us hid behind sneakers again. Skirts were longingly caress but never adorned. Never mind if we had chubby calves, that was saved for a different time.

So what did we do? I know what I did. I sunned my feet. I made a conscious decision to sit by the patio and lay just my feet in the warm (and then hot) rays of the sun. I envisioned even toned legs with toe rings and Ipanemas while roasting my feet.

Then the day finally arrived when I slipped into a pleated, laced skirt and put on my turquoise strappy heels.

First person who sees my outfit says, “came back from diving?”