We weren’t exactly poor when I bought these shoes. We lived in a nice house filled with nice things. We were paying our bills and buying food without scrounging. But Howard had just quit his job at Novell to become a cartoonist. Our income was minimal and our savings were dwindling. Gleek really wanted/needed flip flops for the summer. They were on sale, but it was very hard to part with $6 for brand new shoes when all our other clothes were coming from thrift shops and garage sales for less than a dollar. I remember holding the shoes in my hand and examining them for durability. Spending the money on shoes that would last for a year or two was one thing. Spending money on shoes that would break inside two months was something else. They looked strong. They were adorable. And I knew that Gleek would love them. I bought them and brought them home.
I confess I rather hovered over those shoes for the first while. Gleek did love them, but left them laying around with typical 3 year old abandon. I can’t count the number of times I collected them from neighbor’s houses or even from odd corners of our own house. I felt stressed or worried if the shoes went missing because Gleek did not own many pairs. But they made me happy when she wore them. I was glad my little girl had something pretty in her life during a time when I could not buy her much. I loved watching her clomp around in them. They were big on her feet, so she could wear them for a couple of years. Time marched on and our financial situation changed. I stopped paying attention to these shoes except to kick them into the closet along with all the other pairs.
It has been five years now since I stood in the store debating whether to buy the shoes. Today Gleek handed them to me to get rid of because they are too small. The five years of wear really shows. The toes are scuffed and torn because Gleek tends to drag the fronts of her feet. The soles are worn almost smooth. You can see shadows of the feet that wore them. One of the rhinestones is missing. The small crevices have years of accumulated dirt and sand from trips to beaches or just from being left outside. These shoes have been lost for months on end, then found again. They have been left in the car, left at friend’s houses, lost in the snow, and buried in closets. I have no idea all the creative adventures these shoes have participated in, but now their time has past. Gleek’s feet are too large. She no longer loves pink and butterflies. Now she loves blue, black, green, and furry animals such as cats.
To live is to change and to grow. Things come into our lives and play a part, sometimes an essential part. Then the season passes and it is time to let them go. This afternoon I will deliver the shoes to another little girl who is enamored of pink butterflies. She will not mind the scuff marks or wear. In her eyes these shoes will be as new and they will be beautiful again. It makes me sad to part with them, they are one of the few remnants of that season of our lives when all my energy was spent to make the money last. I had no way of knowing that the shoes would outlive the financial crisis, But they did. We all made it through. Now it is time to pass them on, just as I have moved on. But I did photograph them and write this entry because I do not want to forget.