For eleven days it lay broken on the floor, a shoe with its heel twisted at an impossibly wrong angle, a crime scene that would make any Jimmy Choo-loving woman wretch.
My favorite shoes suffered this break on a particular day when I was lecturing for another professor. After class, while I was turning off the computer, I leaned back on the heels of my gorgeous high heels and (forgetting they aren't made of steel...) "click" the heel popped off.
So off I hobbled, to my office (no extra shoes there) to my car (nope, no shoes there) then home, where there were shoes... but not the ones I wanted.
That's OK, I told myself. Be open to new shoes. The universe is full of wonderful things, make room for something new....
I placed my broken shoes in a corner, by my home office, and tried not to look at them.
But despite my best efforts and best intentions, I just couldn't throw those gorgeously carved wooden platform leather topped shoes away.
Then again, I couldn't fix them.
These awesomely perfect shoes were a super amazing sale find of $12. It would make more sense to buy new (cheap) shoes than to bring these (cheap and broken shoes) to the dreaded shoe man (with that awful shoe smell) and ask for help.
For almost two weeks, I shopped and shopped but no other shoe had the right heel, the same lift, that exact color and texture that made me smile.
Nothing looked good enough. Nothing looked right. I didn't even try a single shoe on.
(Note to self: "investigate serial shoe monogamy")
Then yesterday a surge of courage and hope rolled over me.
I picked up the tube of Gorilla glue that normally terrifies me (what if it spills? what if I glue the washing machine closed? wonder what it smells like.....?) and decided that I would find a way to stick that heel back on.
At first it didn't work, but I tried again with more glue and a steadier hand until the heel stuck back up against the rest of the shoe, flat, strong and stable like it should be.
So if you see me smiling a little more than I should be today, you'll have to forgive me -- I'm wearing my favorite shoes and thinking about what they taught me.
It's great to let go and grow, but some things are worth fixing.
