Walking Papers

The warm weather showed up this week, and once again, I’m not lacing up for a long run to meet it. So I’m pointing all that restless energy somewhere my foot can actually keep up with: the closet.

There’s a clock on this. Right now I still have two-ish working feet and can carry a stack of shoeboxes from upstairs to down without thinking twice about it. That deftness has an expiration date. So the sorting happens now, while moving through my own house is still free.

Here’s the rule I’m sorting by: every pair is auditioning for a leg that’s about to change. The question isn’t “is this cute.” It’s “can this carry me.” And a lot of them can’t.

The kitten heels: out. The flats with a sole the thickness of a postcard and no arch to speak of: out. The pairs that looked great online, felt fine five years ago, and have been quietly punishing my feet ever since: out, out, out. They’ve earned nothing but their walking papers. Time to walk their way out of my house and my life.

What survives is what you see up top. Two tidy rows that all do the same honest job: hold a foot up and keep it there.

Because here’s the part I’m being realistic about. It’ll be nine to twelve months before the swelling settles enough for me to wear anything beyond a lace-up sneaker or, in all seriousness, an Ugg boot with an orthopedic insole tucked inside. For the record: Superfeet + Uggs is genuinely semi-sensible footwear for the aging Gen X-er who would still like to look a little bit hip. I don’t make the rules. My foot does now.

A closet shelf isn’t much. But it’s a small square of order I get to impose while so much of the next year is out of my hands. Lining the shoes up doesn’t fix the foot. It just means that when I finally get to stand back up on it, everything waiting for me will be ready to go the distance.

Okay. Back to it while I’m still motivated.