i have old soles

today, i’m wearing nine year old shoes.
they were purchased in Worcester, Massachusetts while visiting my friends heather & gary for their daughter, rowan’s, first birthday. it was november 1998. i know this only because rowan turns 10 this year and i’ve still got enough mental faculties to do basic math — most of the time.
heather & i, after our friend joe left to go back home to New Joisey, spent a day out shopping at all those amazing amercian stores we don’t have here at home. well, they weren’t amazing, but they were new and exciting to me. one such store, Marshall’s, was beyond my comprehension at the time. of course, now that Winners and HomeSense have burst forth onto the Canadian marketplace i’m used to the concept of designer leftovers at discounted prices, but then? it nearly blew my mind.
now, you should know that when faced with a department store, i make a bee-line for the shoe department. mostly, this comes from never finding any clothes which fit, so shoes were usually my only shot at finding something to buy. these days, i just like looking at shoes, even though my sore feet require the ugly, comfortable variety for functioning without pain. that particular day, i did what i always do and headed for the shoes. very shortly, i came upon a pair of black mary janes with an amazing feature: built in massaging nubbins over the entire foot bed. i don’t remember how much they cost, but even though they were almost a size too big i had to have them. c’mon… massaging nubbins? how could i pass that up?
nine years later, the soles are almost worn through, the toes are all scuffed and they’re all stretched out, but those massaging nubbins? still there and still massaging! i love these shoes quite irrationally. i’ve gone through phases where i’d buy and wear other shoes, but i always come back to these. one day, they’re going to be beyond rescue and the thought makes me very sad. every time i go out shopping a small part of me is looking for a pair to replace them, but it has yet to happen. i’m starting to give up hope that i’ll ever again have anything comfortable to wear on my feet when these have given up the ghost.