I've got this awesome friend named Melece who writes Tiny Anxiety, and she wrote a post the other day about shoes. It got my mind thinking and I want to apologize for the marathon long comment I left on her post about my thoughts on shoes... Because I'm going to just blog about it right now. Much easier. And while writing that marathon long comment, I realized I have some very strong feelings and experiences about shoes.
My first memories with shoes were hating them. I was an outside child, the outdoors were my land, and I dominated them. My backyard had soft green grass, so there really was no point in wearing shoes. You were doing yourself a disservice to wear shoes because you were denying yourself the opportunity to feel that soft grass under your feet. So I gave up on shoes. Shoes were dumb. I didn't need them. Then I made a friend who introduced me to the idea of "Leather feet". Basically, my feet were gutsy enough to walk on soft pansy baby grass, but did they have what it takes to actually replace shoes? Leather feet meant building up the endurance of your feet to withstand things like walking on gravel and walking on burning black top.
I'll bet you're not even wondering if I developed "leather feet" (we called them this because the bottoms of your feet would develop the texture of leather... gross, I know.) Well I'm gonna tell you anyways. Yes. I did develop leather feet. And I still have them to this day. My lack of wearing shoes through my childhood made it so I had pretty wide feet, and very beat up feet too. It was quite a feat.
Through the years, I've broken bones around my feet, mainly ankles. And one such break didn't heal quite right. It makes it so one foot is oh so slightly turned out when I walk. And if my shoes don't fit perfectly, or feel uncomfortable, then that turn out is even more pronounced. Thus I'm even LESS inclined to wear shoes.
There's a policy at my work. "No shoes, no fun." We need the kids to wear shoes for many reasons... for one, we don't want their tender feet stepping on anything sharp. People these days are sue happy and would go crazy all over my preschool were that to happen. Second, we don't want them getting any kind of diseases on their feet. Gross. Third, it's kinda crazy when all the kids are taking of their shoes and socks and you don't know who belongs to what shoes and things get lost and confused and AHHH SO No shoes, no fun. Simple.
There was one little Korean girl, two years old, didn't understand a word I said. She hated wearing shoes, especially outside or during nap time. Normally if a kid takes off their shoes, and I put them back on, even if they don't understand me, they get the sense that I want them to keep the shoes on their feet. This little girl was stubborn. I could be putting her shoes back on her feet 8+ times every hour. Normally with the two year olds, we put large socks over their shoes, socks that go up to their knees. They don't have the strength or skill set to take the socks off so they're stuck. The only thing is that the socks can get kinda gross if they're walking outside, or the kids can slip if they're walking on tile. For a combination of those reasons, I didn't put the socks on her feet. And honestly, I gave up on putting the shoes back on. I'd let another teacher do that. How can I make a child wear shoes when I don't even like wearing shoes myself? I can't reinforce things I don't believe in. And besides, sometimes I went barefoot myself, especially on snowy days when my shoes got wet and had to be tossed in the drier. Those children seriously let me have it when they saw ME shoeless.
And then there's high school, when "No shoes Tuesday" was instituted, and I lived for those days, walked all over the school with no shoes. Kinda weird. But know what? Just forget about it. I've never gotten any kind of fungus on my feet ever, they've stayed healthy and clean. Maybe it's because I don't wear shoes! But I was sitting in class and leaned forward and whispered to one classmate, "I'm not wearing any shoes...." and she looked at my feet and realized that I told the truth, and realized that she didn't even notice. It makes you think about those expensive shoes you buy, huh? Do people really notice/care?
One last story. I had pretty cute wedding shoes. A nude Mary Jane with blue bows on them. They had an elastic around the edge of them, if you know what I'm talking about... Ya know, here's a pic.
Ok my shoes are kinda hard to see. But hey, you can see Joseph's fancy Europe shoes. I thought he was so hot wearing all his European clothes he'd gotten. Eh hem, where was I.
TL;DR, the shoes were pretty comfortable. That HAD to be, because I was going to wear them for like 24 hours! Heck, I don't even like flip flops for 24 hours. But these shoes were a little like heaven slippers. Just super comfortable.
But not comfortable enough to wear for 24 hours, thus, after we finished pictures and got in our car to drive to Sonic, the shoes were off and my feet were on the dash board. Ugly feet and all. Bless that saint of a husband who married me with my ugly feet.
I'll say I wore those shoes walking into the reception center to be dignified and what not. I did. And I wore them standing in line at 6pm waiting for the receiving line to start but everyone who was there was at the Temple too and people who are there for your ceremony get to congratulate you there so there's no point in standing in line again, and our parents weren't there, and I was a QUEEN of run on sentences... So we decided to dance, since it was our day and no one was there.
Now you know SO much about my feet and stuff! Congrats! You're ready to take the test.
1. Does Lara like shoes?
a. No
b. No
c. All of the above
2. Is she ok with that?
a. Yes
3. Good job.
a. Hey thanks!
b. Am I getting paid to do this?
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