Shoe Fly, Shoe

I have a problem. A real problem. And I think I might need help.

I have probably over 50 pairs of shoes. Really. And I only wear 4–5 of those pairs. The worst part is that I buy new ones to replace the worn, tattered, old pairs... and I still wear the old shoes. I have some sick emotional attachment to them.

For example, about two weeks ago, I bought a new pair of brown flip flops with some flowery-looking detail to replace these.

[insert picture of seven year-old brown leather flip flops with a flower print and worn foot marks]

I bought these on clearance when I was nineteen. Nineteen! They are obviously worn. If I don't hold my foot completely still in a certain position, you can see really stupid worn foot marks. However, these here shoes have been to Hawaii and on multiple trips to the California coast with me. Too many memories...

I have purchased a half dozen pairs of black flip flips over the course of the past few years. Yet, somehow, I still wear these.

[insert picture of seven-year old black flip flips with tearing straps and a chunk missing from one shoe]

I was given these for free when I worked at American Eagle... in 2002! They were also in Hawaii. And Island Park, Jackson Hole, St. George, California, Nevada, etc., etc. I can feel a permanent imprint of my foot when I slip them on my feet. I can also feel the ground when I walk in them. The straps are tearing from the shoe, and there is a chunk missing from the side of the left flop where a friend's dog took a bite out of crime... or out of my shoe. Not to mention, they're made of a spongey material and, well, they absorb things. You catch my drift. Yet I love them! And I wear them everywhere.

Then there was my other favorite pair of black flip flops that I only enjoyed for a short season.

[insert picture of moderately appealing black Roxy flip flops with pink hibiscus flowers on the heel]

They were well on their way to becoming the replacement of the afore mentioned black flops. I was just learning to love them, and was truly becoming attached to them, when they were violently (I can only assume, since I didn't actually see it happen) torn from the side pocket of my backpack in Europe this summer. Oh, if shoes could talk.....

THEN, there's these guys...

[insert picture of super cute brown hybrid trail shoes with pink detail]

Let's just say that this pair and I did NOT get along. And they met their fate in Spain, where I purposely left them to fend for themselves in the Madrid airport.... after spending a hundred dollars on them and only knowing them for 3 weeks. Hey, we all make mistakes.

Some people have emotional attachments to people, books, TV shows, friends, food. I have an emotional attachment to shoes— really old, worn shoes. And that's the way the cookie crumbles.

[images to come]