Defining You: My Former Lover as a Shoe

You once asked me what kind of shoe I thought you were. You had stayed up all night reading every single entry of this blog. You had wanted to know the inner workings of my crazy brain. You had read it all. And you were not afraid of this brain, rather you seemed fascinated by it and you still came back for more. "I kept wondering what kind of shoe I'd be?" you half wondered aloud, half asked me directly.

"I'm still figuring it out," I replied. "But you're not an uncomfortable shoe," I think I had said to you.

...What kind of shoe were you?

Maybe I never knew what kind of shoe you were and that's what always fascinated me about you. Sometimes you were a hiking boot--manly and sturdy and solid and adventurous. Sometimes you were a Birkenstock--earthy and worldly and natural.

Sometimes you were a slipper, warm and comfortable and all encompassing, and in your presence, I was fleecy and surrounded and safe and warm... I loved your slipper moments when your shield was down and you were a boy and a man at the same time. You were a child in your sweetness and a man in the way you took care of me. You were a slipper in the early hours of the morning when you held me close as we awoke, and a slipper late at night when you held me tight as we'd fall asleep. You were a slipper in the way you always found me and took me in your arms again when dozing had separated us.

Sometimes you were a clog. You were a combination of comfort and work. You were still sturdy but you blended both worlds. You were unpretentious. Did not care for fashion in those moments. You wore shirts with holes and pants dotted with glaze and dust. You had zero care for other peoples' opinions of you. You did things your way. And fuck them if they had anything to say about it.

Sometimes you were an incredibly expensive Italian leather shoe. You splurged on the best wine, the best dinner, the best hats, the best beads, the best opera tickets. Because "all the fun is being up close, you can't enjoy it from far away," you had said. You enjoyed music and theatre and opera and fine art and fine foods and antiques that cost more than I have ever managed to save in my bank account. There was this mentality of living in luxury if you were going to splurge at all, mixed with this mentality of living modestly that continued to intrigue me. You had a taste for the fine things, the rich things, but your home was very much unadorned aside from a few pieces of art strewn about, propped against walls. And in this way you weren't an Italian shoe at all, you were a gladiator sandal of the most uncomplicated kind. You lived simply and cleanly. Didn't own a microwave or a TV. Kept meaning to get a table. We ate dinner on your living room floor and ate breakfast while sitting on your kitchen counter. You rarely had food in your refrigerator. Everything was cooked fresh. You would buy what you needed as you needed it. Nothing processed. Nothing artificial. And if it came from a box you would not eat it. Except for granola. You did love granola.

Sometimes you were a sexy shoe. A high-heeled gorgeous dangerous shoe. A shoe that you knew if you put on you would feel dangerous and exciting wearing. You were a motorcycle riding, sky-diving, free-spirited, sculptor man-child with a past that was speckled with trouble and clay and glass and danger and lost love and second chances. I dared to wear this shoe even though I feared it might hurt after awhile.

Sometimes I felt like you were a combination of all these shoes. You were a hiking boot-slipper-clog-Italian loafer-sandal-high heel. And all of these shoes fascinated me. All of these shoes were so different yet made so much sense as we put them on at the same time. And this shoe was funny looking and it fit oddly sometimes, but I still loved discovering the different shoes you could be and how each shoe made sense in our world. I'd never met someone who was as many shoes as you were.

And yes, sometimes when I wore you,  it felt like there were pebbles rocking back and forth across my soles. Sometimes it felt like you forgot someone was wearing you, needing your support. Sometimes it felt like you were only there for the soles when they were inside you and never when you were walking on your own. Your shoes were fine when we were together and imaginary when we were apart. Sometimes I wondered if I even owned a pair of shoes. Did my shoes even exist? Had I only made them up? 

As WE wore this shoe, I think we both slowly realized there was also a piece missing. There was a buckle that had loosened, or patch of fabric or a swatch of leather that had torn away, worn away...and that missing piece had torn away long before I met you. And nothing I could do could bring that piece back. It was a piece you were still searching for when I first tried you on. And we both ignored it for a long time, and even when we both acknowledged there was a piece of your shoe that was gone, we tried to work around the missing buckle....maybe we could create a new buckle?

But you can't slap a new buckle on an old shoe that has walked a billion miles next to someone else who stole the buckle in the first place...A shoe that has walked in darkness for so long and is still looking for a way to walk in the light again. The shoe may have stumbled upon a new pair of feet, the owner of the feet may have dared to try on this strange hybrid shoe, and they danced for a long time together in and out of sunshine...until she realized the shoe was still looking for the piece of itself it had lost along the way. Or maybe he never owned this piece in the first place. Their journey was always a labored one because they had both desperately needed that missing piece to feel whole again. They had tried to pave a new road to walk on together, but until the shoe realized it needed to walk into the light on its own again, it would never feel right walking into the light besides anyone else.

......And most of the time, you were actually no shoe at all, you were just a shoeless creature. You were just a human who preferred to feel the ground with his bare feet than to weigh them down with anything. You were a man who'd move to the top of a mountain in a second if he had the chance, a man who'd build a glass dome at the very highest peak and sleep inside peacefully so he could see the sky and the stars and feel close to the spirits. You were a man who would disappear into the woods whenever he could because the city became too much. You were a man who made his home a jungle and surrounded himself with plants he charmingly named. You were a man who would sail out to the middle of the lake and anchor down and exist on the water for days on his own because he embraced the solitude and the peace the waves would bring. You were a man who clipped fake butterflies into potted plants and placed plastic sharks in the shower. You were a man who biked everywhere, a man who owned THREE bikes and pedaled endlessly. You were a man who'd rather walk around with no clothes than be bound by clothes, a man who would immediately pull off his shirt as soon as he was safe inside his cocoon of a home, a man who preferred silk and linen if he had to wear anything at all. You were a man who adored animals, a man whose closest friend was a stray dog he had rescued. But the truth is, she rescued you too. More than I could. You were a man who very clearly said he identified with the tiger in the zoo. You felt caged by society, by people, you wanted to be in the wild.

Most of all I think of you as this man....this rare and rough around the edges barefooted man who was looking for himself when I met him, a man who adored clay and the Earth and the moon, a man who found beauty everywhere and appreciated the human form and the human touch more than anyone else I'd ever known. And whether you were a pair of shoes or a barefooted soul, I hope one day you find the pieces you were missing when I met you. And that I'll get my missing pieces back, as well.