When I was a little girl, my aunt gave me a copy of Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tales. It was a big book with a beautiful blue binding and full color illustrations, and I spent a couple of years with that book on my nightstand so I could read and re-read it. Not because I loved the stories, really. I loved Laura Ingalls and Charlie Bucket and Harriet the Spy. I kept reading Hans Christian Andersen because the stories scared me. They horrified me just enough to keep me coming back for more.

“The Snow Queen” freaked me out, and “The Little Match Girl” was terribly sad . . . but no story had a hold on my imagination quite like “The Red Shoes.”

For those of you unfamiliar with the story, it’s the tale of an orphan girl taken in by a kindly noble woman who’s nearly blind. The girl is to select a pair of shoes for her confirmation day and, taking advantage of he benefactor’s blindness (”she’ll never know!”), chooses a bright red pair. Of course, folks at church are duly horrified and tell on the little girl, who promises never to wear the shoes again . . . but she can’t help it. She loves the attention, and she loves the way the red shoes make her feel—they make her feel pretty and powerful. They make her feel like dancing! And dance she does, until she finds she’s not in control of her own two feet. She wants to dance left, but the shoes dance right. She wants to go to bed, but her dancing legs keep her up all night. She even subjects her poor benefactor to her flailing kicks one day as they ride home in their carriage.

The worst part is, she wants to take the red shoes off, but she can’t. No matter how much she tugs and pulls, they’re stuck fast. The only solution as she sees it is to have the executioner chop her feet off—which he does—and, afterward, she watches as her disembodied shoes (and what’s left of her extremities) dance themselves down the forest path. (Can you see why this would be fascinating and horrifying to a nine year old?) The best part of the story, though, is an aspect that I didn’t understand when I was a little kid. It’s what happens after she gets her feet chopped off.

“‘Now, I have suffered enough for the red shoes,’ she said; ‘I will go to church, so that people can see me.’ And she went quickly up to the church-door; but when she came there, the red shoes were dancing before her, and she was frightened, and turned back.”

She tries to go to church twice, feeling as if she has earned the parishioner’s sympathy and accolades, and both times her dancing feet block the way. She finally gives up and finds work as a maid for the pastor’s household, where she learns thrift and industriousness and humility. The pastor’s wife asks her to come to church but she doesn’t feel she’s able. While the family is away she prays (”O God! Help me!”) and an angel appears. Miraculously, the walls around her transform to the walls of a church and she finds herself surrounded by church-goers in their pews, singing hymns.

“The church itself had come to the poor girl in her narrow room, or the room had gone to the church. She sat in the pew with the rest of the pastor’s household, and when they had finished the hymn and looked up, they nodded and said, ‘It was right of you to come, Karen.’

‘It was mercy,’ said she.

And then, as is the fashion in good Andersen fairy tales, she is taken up to heaven and her eternal rest.

I started thinking about “The Red Shoes” last week. It had been a ridiculously crazy week (and I’ll spare you all the details as to why), but needless to say, the fairy tale’s metaphor seemed apt. I felt like my own Red Shoes had been dancing me, and I was exhausted.

In the midst of all the craziness, my husband and I had a good long talk about how (how? how?) we could possibly figure out a way to live full lives without the attendant frenzy. In other words, we asked ourselves: “What do we give up?”

The problem as I see it is that most of the stuff that keeps me dancing seems like good stuff. I don’t think it’s as obviously self-indulgent as a pair of bright red dancing shoes. (And I realize—of course—that at first the girl in the story thought her red shoes were harmless, too. Addicts never think they’re addicted. And there’s the being led “carefully down to hell,” and the flaxen cords, etc. etc.)

I’ve read “Good, Better, Best,” and yes, I’m trying to apply the counsel. It’s just so hard to really know how much is too much. It’s such an individual question, and there’s a lot in my life that’s meaningful to me and/or my children that could conceivably be cut out, but I find myself wondering if I absolutely must. After all, I keep all my balls in the air about 90% of the time. It’s that 10% when I wonder if I am, in fact, nuts.

I also know it takes a certain toll on my children and husband when I ignore them to grade papers, or write, or edit literary magazines with a current subscription base of 218. (Yes, yes, I know. It gives me pause, too.) There are times like last week when I’m running around the house like a banshee, feeding the kids chicken nuggets two nights in a row, forgetting my appointment to help in my 2nd grader’s class, blowing off merit badge paperwork, dashing my kids from baseball practice to piano recitals, screeching in the parking lot so I’m not late for class and I think THIS MUST STOP!! I wonder if I gave up all my personal stuff and focused solely on my family and their needs if everyone would be better off in the end.

I wonder if the only solution is to cut off my feet at the ankles and leave them as an offering at the ward house door.

But that’s where the allegory gets interesting, no? Even after losing her feet—even after such a “sacrifice”—the girls’ Red Shoes are still blocking the way. I fear that if in a fit of pique or exhaustion or self-doubt I proclaimed to God, “I will give up this, and this, and that. Here you go. Take it!”, not only would my spirit be hobbled, but I would be just as obsessed by what I had “given up” as I was while I was dancing.

I remember after the famous (and in some circles, infamous) Julie B. Beck talk, “Women Who Know,” a friend of mine despaired that she’d already quit her book club, because she “didn’t have anything left to give up.” I didn’t believe then, nor do I now, that the intention of the church (or, even, of Julie B. Beck) is to require that its women in child-rearing years give up anything that isn’t directly related to momhood. I don’t think God, especially, wants us to leave our abandoned book-clubs on some kind of sacrificial altar as proof of our piety and excellent intentions.

But He also wants us to figure out how to make good choices with our lives. How to serve our families without neglecting our own spiritual, emotional, physical, and intellectual needs. The trick is getting the balance right. And I’m still figuring that one out.

So I stumble along with my feet still attached at the ankles. I try to remember why, a long time ago, all of us fought really hard for the principle of free agency. I strive to stay in tune with the spirit, which can be hard with so many distractions. And I remain grateful for God’s mercy because I’m going to need it, no matter what I do.

What are your Red Shoes? How do you keep them from dancing you into oblivion? Is it even possible to find that perfect balance? Do tell.