Did you know that sock protectors have special powers? Yep, those simple pieces of fabric,held up by elastic that sit over the top of your boot can get right into the nooks and crannies of your life and bring the whole thing crashing down around your ears. Surprised? I was too.

Image: Rossi Boots website

It’s no secret, I love making shit for people. Every year I make upwards of twenty Christmas cakes to give out to my friends and family. I write stories and stupid little poems for people, I buy my friends gifts when I come across something I think they’d dig. I give money to homeless people and I give my time to charitable causes by hiking long distances to raise money for stuff I care about.

Once, at Woodford Folk Festival I bought two teenagers some books in the bookstore because they didn’t have enough money to get the books they wanted. “Get whatever you want and I’ll pay for it. Don’t worry about the price, just get it and I’ll pay for it,” I said. When one of them asked why I said, “Just because.”  After I did that I felt totally magnanimous and went a bought a stranger a coffee, then another, then another, all anonymously. It made me feel totally awesome.

This is nothing new. I haven’t set out to create trouble for anyone by being kind. In fact, I’ve been this way since I was a little kid. All through my life I’ve loved making things to give to others. I never imagined that it could turn on me.

A while back I made a good friend of mine a pair of stupid sock protectors. They were flowery and ridiculous. I knew he’d probably never wear them because of their ridiculousness, but I thought it was funny, and I thought it was fitting because we hadn’t been friends that long, so it was a light-hearted gift to give at a beginning of a friendship.

I wish I’d never made them. As a result of these stupid sock protectors I’ve been accused of some pretty outrageous shit. Quite a significant amount of assumptions have been made about me, my motives, my marriage and how I spend my time. Even my human rights have been called into question.

Because: sock protectors.

It must have had something to do with the fabric I made these particular sock protectors from because I’ve had no back lash from the sock protectors I made for other friends to let them know I value their friendship:

Peter: I met this guy when I hiked from Woodgate to Brisbane in 2019. These ones were made out of Star Trek fabric

Yal: I met this dude at uni in 2010. These ones were made out of Hawaiian fabric

Liv: I met this cool chic on the same hike as I met Peter. These ones were made out of red flowery material

Tiiu: Another cool chic I met on the hike. These ones were made out corduroy with a stawberry print

Wardy: A fella from a town I used to live in. This guy had about ten pairs; all flowery material

And, what about all the other stuff that I’ve made people over the years; bags out of old jeans and vintage sheet and curtain fabric; the jams and preserves I’ve prepared; the writing paper I’ve marbled by hand in my kitchen; the cross stitch and weaving I’ve crafted; the plants I’ve grown from seed; not to mention the stuff that my friends have made for me, like shopping bags out of old t-shirts, kitchen hand towels, cocodamas, crocheted beanies, patchwork quilts, etc, etc?

How is it that a simple act of kindness can be taken out of context and used as a tool of destruction and vitriol? I know the answer, it’s because in general, people have a hard time being able to step back and look at the big picture. I’ve noticed that it’s really difficult for people to recognise their shortcomings. I know this because I’m human too. I’ve come to learn that one of the hardest things to do in life is to take responsibility for stuff and come to terms with your accountability. It’s so very much easier to take something that has nothing to do with your situation (like sock protectors or even birthday cake) and focus on that to alleviate having to examine your own shortcomings; in this situation, an inability to see things for what they are, not what they’re imagined to be.

Basically, my gift of sock protectors allowed a person to circumvent the accountability they needed to face and shift it onto me, which, by the way, has absolute zero to do with me nor with sock protectors, but I’m pretty doubtful they’ll ever see it like that. This is where the magic comes into it. It’s magical thinking that has facilitated the great switcheroo here, magical thinking that decades, or even just a few hours of discord in a person’s life can be blamed on sock protectors and that everything will be solved because it’s all my fault, even though me and the sock protectors only came along after things had gone south.

It sucks having to deal with your own shortcomings, but unless you do, you can’t live an authentic life, and that means that you can’t ever really be properly happy. As the Cool Guy I’m Married to says, “Take the hit early”.  What he means here is, if you accept that you’re wrong, that you made a mistake, or that you basically just fucked things up, then that’s great because you can sort it out ASAP and get on with things. It’s OK to make mistakes because as humans that’s one thing we’re pretty damn good at. It’s how we’ve made it to the point where we live in civilisation; a place where most of us have jobs, drive cars, have bank accounts, watch TV, buy shit we don’t need and have running water. The life we all have now is only the way it is because we fucked everything up, but kept on learning and moving forward.

You have to own your own shit because:

HURTING + OVERCOMING = LEARNING + GROWING