If the shoe [doesn't] fit...

Hello, dear blog.

So my last few posts about Oceanside and a new job seem woefully unimportant now. The few weeks that I was employed by that company feel like a black hole, a hole where the site of my reporter pad would make me nauseous and I developed a brief interview stutter.

In other words, I was laid off.

So now I am blogging to you from a coffee shop, terrifically unemployed, unpaid (the former company of mine is having financial troubles), yet undeterred. If you can't laugh when life takes you to Oceanside and then shits all over your lovely yet childlike perception that the job world will give you as much love as you give it, then when can you?

I choose to laugh. HA. HA. Ha. ha.

So, let me dwell not and instead get to the real subject of this post: shoes! My brief stint as a reporter allowed me to meet a bunch of people and get to know a bunch of local business. Being the clothes hound that I profess I am, (I am! I am) I gravitated toward boutique business. During one interview, I found a pair of precious black patent wedges.

I yanked them off the shelf and immediately tried the price. $7.00! I'll take them!

Unfortunately they were size 6.5. I can squeeze into a 7.5 sometimes, and have bought a pair of 7.5 studded stilettos in a moment of reduced price desperation. But 6.5 was pushing it. They are uncomfortable, my toes hang off like pigeons on a phone line, and I can only wear them to outing that involve little walking and lots of sitting (read: movie, dinner, doing my makeup).

But I had to have them, very much. In fact if I left the store without buying them, something truly terrible would happen, like I'd get gout or be fired (ha.ha.ha.). My hands itched to possess the too small shoes, and my heart raced as she rang them up. Let's go! my silent thought process said. If I don't own these, someone else with smaller feet will. I should have them, because I want them, now. They will make me happy, now. If I don't, right now, they will sit, right now, and later, someone who doesn't really love them for all they are will get them, later, and I will be alone, for now, and for later.

And then perhaps, for ever.

Well, I got them, I now own them, and they sit along the top shelf of my closet gathering dust. I realize, regretfully, that I really should not have bought them, even though they looked great and made me feel great. When I'd feel dull or unhappy, I'd look at them and think "Well, at least I have that." And I'd feel giddy, and sneaky, and comfortable for the time being.

But you can't keep shoes on retainer, especially ones that don't fit. Shoes are meant to be worn, walked, and admired. They are meant to spend time with you, to be a part of your life. You can't just stay with shoes because it makes you feel good to have them around, just in case.

In case of what? Something bad happening? Like getting laid off?

Well, I got laid off. I put the shoes on, thinking I could salvage something from my time "on the job." And when push came to shove, when I most needed them to fit, they still didn't.

I know its silly to pin hopes of support onto inanimate objects. But my reverse Cinderella story made me realize that it is just as silly to pin hopes of support on ill-fitting relationships as it is on pretty patent wedges.