May
2
If I were to tell the story of my family, I’d pick shoes to interweave the lives of several generations. My dad grew up with 10 siblings; I grew up with 8. When you have a family that huge, footwear is one of the things you’d have to write off as “expendible”. And it was.
I grew up with only one pair of shoes – black maryjanes which were staple wear in my all-girls Catholic school. So did my dad.
In a perfect world, those shoes would be immune to wear and tear and may even outlive their wearer. In our world, shoes wear out on the sixth month… and so more often than not, we had to go to school with holes on our shoes.
Of course, that sounds worse than it really was. The holes weren’t so bad. They only got in the way on rainy days when water made our socks soggy and we end up trudging from classroom to classroom on shoes that made odd squeaky sounds. Still, we were lucky. My dad and I may have had to wear battered shoes but we went to private schools, got the same education as better-off kids, made better use of what we learned than they did, and now, we don’t have to wear shoes with holes in them at all!
The habit stuck, though. I rarely throw out shoes, even the ones that have become so ragged and threadbare even the help refuses to wear them. This drives the husband up the wall so I compromise by giving the shoes away instead of chucking them out.
But those battered maryjanes I wore to school back then — I miss them now! I used to cringe in shame each time I had to get up the stage and deliver Friday’s announcements; what’s a student council president doing, wearing shoes with innards hanging out for all the world to see? But in time, those shoes became a source of strength. They drove me to do more and better. I was that girl with the tattered maryjanes, after all. The only way the other kids won’t feel sorry for me is if I outdo them at everything. And I did, or at least tried to. What a classmate does well, I make a point of doing better. What another student does fast, I do faster.
I’ve long since stopped competing, long since stopped over-achieving to compensate for something I don’t have. But those shabby shoes taught me a life-long lesson, a lesson I hope my own kids would learn on their own someday: ability is the poor man’s wealth. If you’re not afraid of putting in an honest day’s work and getting your hands dirty, there isn’t anything you CAN’T do even if you’ve to do this on shoes that are so badly worn they are coming apart at the seams.
Here’s to tatty shoes, new blogs, and successes earned and deserved!
Comments
One Response to “Walking On Battered MaryJanes And A Dream”
Awwww! Chin, this is oh-so-inspiring. Sobs!