I have always been a shoe person if you will.
A quite picky shoe person to ensure that I didn’t buy plastic moulds for my feet or ones that were like having concrete slabs wrapped to my feet. I like to invest in a pair that would last me years.
Of course, these then all start piling up and all of a sudden I’m looking at my many many pairs that are now all lasting me years and some even reaching a decade of service.
But if you know a thing or two about shoes, it’s that the more you wear them, the sooner you should be swapping them out. Once the shoe structures, padding and layers start getting worn into and worn down, it starts become a disservice to your feet, alignment and posture.
It’s also no surprise that I sometimes buy shoes when travelling. Some a great designs that I have never seen back at home and others are needed during the trip or for the next few months. I get so attached to these shoes that I have purchased on my travel, tying these shoes not to my feet but also a memory of this trip.
I have such a hard time letting go of these shoes. It’s as if I would also be letting go of the memory of my trip yet I know deep down that this is not the case.
During this most recent lockdown, I bid farewell to a pair of shoes that I’ve had for about a decade which I had bought on my travels. One pair of black ankle boots that I bought in Copenhagen. I still remember trying them on in the store and was amazed at how comfortable they were immediately. These have served me through many winters and well, it’s embarassing the state that they were in when I said goodbye.
The other pair that are next to go are bright orange and pink Converses which were a collaboration with Marimekko. I also remember seeing these one night in a store in Helsinki and thought that they were so funky and my first ever ‘loud’ shoes. Despite owning these for such a long time, I wanted to ‘save’ these for occasional wear only so that I could keep them forever. A decade later, I’ve learnt that many things aren’t made to last forever and especially not shoes. I’m hoping to have a last few wears until bidding farewell.
I guess this has now turned into a blog post dedicated to these two pairs of shoes.
Let’s not talk about the other 4 pairs of travel shoe purchases that I am too emotionally attached to.
Do you have items that you have a travel attachment to that you haven’t been able to part with easily?
Lingo in Transit 
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