September 23, 2008

My Shoes

I just counted. I have 19 pairs of shoes in my bedroom.

Dress shoes. Tennis shoes. Running shoes. Brown shoes. Black shoes. Shiny shoes. Heavy shoes.

I should throw some of them away.

But I can’t.

Here we encounter one of the milder symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Hoarding.

Emotional attachment to inanimate objects.

Those shoes are like old friends. Some have been with me since my senior year of high school. I’ve had some great successes in those shoes. I’ve had some awful failures in those shoes, too.

I remember what shoes I was wearing when I went for my first job interview. I purposely wore those same shoes the last day of that job.

I really do see them as old friends. Just looking over there now, it seems like some of them are smiling at me.

“Thank you, Brandon, for telling our story.”

Kinda creepy. Knock it off, shoes.

Maybe that’s why I’m picky about picking out shoes. It’s like choosing a friend. Better choose carefully.

I think about the shoes that I wore in DC, Houston, New York, and Key West. Maybe there’s a little beach sand still on the sole. It’s now mixed with puke from the guy throwing up at the bar I was at last night. Your life story is on the bottom of that shoe. Each of your adventures wore the sole down a little more.

So make it count.

Every step you take is wearing your sole out a little more.

In more ways than one.

Is it worth it?

What’s this blog about, anyway?

Shoes?

Or taking chances?

Risk.

Saving your sole.

Shut up and dance.

© August 16, 2006

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