The Story of a Pair of Shoes

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Once upon a time I graduated from college and got myself a job. I have left everything behind at college. It was fun but I felt it was time for something new. A new job at a new city seemed like… the perfect opportunity to start over.

One night I was walking around in a shopping mall and I fell down the escalator. In the most non-elegant way possible, I might add. My knees were bruised blue and a lot of people saw me fall flat on my face. I thought that was the only Big Event that would happen that night. Nope. Another Big Event occurred. I found a new pair of shoes.

Now there are many kinds of shoes. Some are comfortable but never fits you well. Some are super stylish but you know they’re just not for you. Some come way too cheap. Some way too pricey. But this one pair was different. I thought I wouldn’t like it at first. I tried it on. Hmm, not too bad. The shoes are not ugly like Hush Puppies flats, nor is it too tall and ankle-murdering like Jimmy Choo stilettos. Maybe I’ll let the shoes stick around and see if they’re worth having.

When I first met the shoes I thought they were too boring for me. The shoes thought I was too much of a clown to be wearing them either. But it turned out the shoes fit me pretty well. They made me smile a lot than I already was. I think I made the shoes pretty happy too. They were reliable. They kept my feet on the ground whenever I floated too far. We walked through a lot of laughs, good times, even the horribly depressing times.

Then one day something happened. I’m not sure if it was me who scratched the shoes’ soles or it was the shoes that hurt my ankle, but they needed to be given away. It made me sad. The thing about a good pair of shoes is that they’re not easy to find. And when you do, it’s not easy to forget about them when they’re gone. You think they’ll always be waiting by the door for you but they’re not. You think they’ll make you smile on your bad days like they always do but they wont. And as you go through life you look for something to replace them, and you probably will, but you know you’ll never quite find the same pair. You hope you get to wear the shoes again but if you don't, you hope that the next person who finds the shoes will appreciate them as much as you do. Because although it seems as you can easily find thousands of shoes in this world, it's unlikely you would want to walk with most of them.

And no, I wasn’t talking about shoes at all.