A Story About Shoes

I was sure I could fit in, if only I had the Steve Madden brown square stacked heel penny loafers. 

I was 14, and it was my first year at a brand new school in a brand new city. I didn't know a soul. There was a group of girls that hung out together every morning by the lockers. Blond-haired, blue-eyed and beautiful, they stood tall like they owned the school. And lets be honest, their fathers probably did. The blond and blue girls laughed. The boys flocked. 

Every morning I watched them and wondered. I wondered how I could make myself a part of their group. How I could make myself popular like them. I was in eighth grade and miserably alone. How many mornings had to pass, I wondered, until the big, red, "New Girl" badge I wore would finally disappear. 

We all dressed in the same uniform; short khaki skirts and stiff white button down shirts embroidered with a "B". But the blond-haired, blue-eyed and beautiful girls all wore the Steve Madden brown square stacked heel penny loafers. Those shoes were my ticket out of anonymity. My pathway to happiness. I knew it for sure.

So I asked - begged - my parents to take me to the mall to get a pair. The answer was a firm and resounding no. "They are too expensive," said my dad. "You don't need to wear heels to school," said my mom. I tried to explain that these were not just shoes. These were magic. But the answer was still no.

I had never before, nor have I ever since, wanted - needed - a pair of shoes this badly. My days were consumed with longing. I imagined how they would feel on my feet. How they would look. What I would say to the blond-haired, blue-eyed and beautiful girls once I finally had the Steve Madden brown square stacked heel penny loafers. Once I was no longer the new girl. No longer invisible.

It took nearly four long months of waiting and wondering and begging, but finally my parents relented, and the shoes were mine. In my bedroom, I opened the white box slowly. Reverently. Removed the lid with its triumphant black logo. Took out the shoes that I was certain would change everything.

When my alarm rang the next day I proudly put on my Steve Madden brown square stacked heel penny loafers and went to school.

But nothing was different. Not that day, and not for the hundreds of high school days that followed.

But I didn't stop wearing the shoes. Just in case.

The lines of this memory are not blurred and softened by time, as memories often are. Its images are still vivid. The edges sharp as knives. My eyes still fill and my stomach clenches tight as I think about that young girl, scared and alone, wanting deeply to fit in where she very much did not belong. 

A few years ago I found my Steve Madden brown square stacked heel penny loafers all the way in the back of my closet. They were scuffed and scarred with desperation, longing, and loneliness. I almost tossed them in the "throw away" pile. But then I didn't. Couldn't. Wouldn't.

They went through a lot, those shoes of mine. But they are still here.

And so am I.