Red shoes

Photo by Jaclyn Moy on Unsplash

 

Ada and I wear the same size shoe now (much to her delight).  So the other day she offered me a cushy pair of slippers that she never wears.  I wore them around the house Sunday afternoon and quickly realized they could be my new best friends.

But.  I have a self-imposed rule that I can only have the number of shoes that fit in my shoe spaces in my closet.  And we girls just got a big load of hand-me-down shoes that we’re all really excited about, so my shoe spaces are at capacity.  And I don’t want to flout my rule and turn into the crazy shoe lady.  One has to draw the line somewhere.

So what to do with the cushy slippers?  

Helping with applesauce.  Fat lip courtesy of kissing the driveway at high speed via skateboard.

Science.

I thought about reclassifying them as socks.  But they have a definite sole.  I couldn’t lie to myself that way.

I could reject them on the grounds that I already have enough shoes.  But here’s the thing.  I would wear and enjoy them very regularly this winter.  And my love affair with impractical shoes means that I hardly ever wear 90% of my collection.  They’re more like closet decorations, beautifying the space until I have just the right outfit to wear the statement polka-dot platforms, and then they’re amazing and I love them so much.  Besides, just owning them and lacing up my sneakers while I look at them lovingly makes me happy, and that alone is worth something.

But could I give up one pair of shoes I hardly ever wear to make room for slippers that I will wear all the time? (Are we post-2020 or what?)

Marshmallow molecules.

It’s been several days, and I still haven’t decided which of my beloveds to let go.  I picked up my new-to-me shimmery purple pumps, but put them back.  Rainbow wedge flip-flops?  But they’re so surprisingly comfortable.  No way will I part with any of my boots.  I only have one pair of royal blue shoes of any type, or black and white stripes.  And the beige suede platforms are actually practical, if we’re talking about just color.

And then my eyes fell on the patent red pumps.  

Oh red shoes.  They happen to be identical to the shimmery purple pumps (also hand-me-downs).  And I would wear deep purple more often than bright red.

But there’s another reason I’ve been holding onto the red shoes, and that reason is this:

On March 14, 2020, we were scheduled to host a murder mystery dinner party with three other couples.  I have always wanted to have a murder mystery dinner party.  I bought the kit, I planned the menu, I arranged the date and the childcare.  I assigned the silly roles to each guest.  I made an authentic 50’s playlist.  I bought hula hoops.  I sent the themed invitations.  

And I had the perfect thrifted dress for the 1950’s-themed barbecue party.  It was a polka-dotted A-line….and it was red.  

And I had the perfect matching red pumps to go with it.  

Camo ninja, blackbird, gumball machine.

And the couples that were coming were some of our most fun and beloved friends, and it was all planned out, and I was really excited.

And then March 2020 happened.  So I had to postpone indefinitely.

Why not just reschedule now that we’re no longer quarantining, you ask?  Well, on the original date, we four couples had twenty children between us.  Now there are twenty-one, one of them being very tiny and probably not excited about a murder mystery dinner party.  In other words, our childcare plans, our schedules, our childbearing, all aligned at that one glorious moment, like the rarest planetary conjunction, and who knows if that will happen again in our lifetime.  

But that mystery dinner kit is still sitting on my shelf, un-peeked-at.  I could be the murderer! I still have the playlist, although the hula hoops are long since broken (loooong months of quarantine you know).  

There were a lot of things I didn’t mind about quarantine.  

But I’m still disappointed about my cancelled murder dinner.  

Which brings us back to the red shoes.  And the dress, for that matter, which is still hanging in my closet, unworn, because it’s honestly really uncomfortable, and I accidentally sent it through the wash when I shouldn’t have and it did something weird to the skirt part like a partial uneven shrinking.  

But I’m saving them for the murder dinner.  Because it’s just postponed, right??  It’ll still happen?

If I let the red shoes go, it’s admitting defeat.  It’s admitting that this event I had really hoped would happen, isn’t ever going to happen.  It changes the narrative from “We can’t do this now so we’ll do it at a different time” to “Covid took this away from me and I’ll never get it back.”

What I was looking forward to was laughing at my grown friends hula hooping, and dramatically accusing them of murdering a fictional character.  Some people lost their graduation, for heaven’s sake, or their wedding, or even the lives of their friends and family.  I know I can still live a full and worthwhile life without my murder dinner.

But I’m still having trouble letting go of the red shoes.