Searching for My Solemate

Once upon a time (about 3 weeks ago), I designed the perfect blue shoes in my mind, safe where no one could see them. One day, I decided I was ready for the bright blue suede pumps of my dreams to brighten my mournful winter suits. I went searching for them in every shoe store in Atlanta's retail forest. At DSW, all the blue shoes were patent leather. At Macy's and Bloomingdales, inkblot/navy was the closest color available to bright blue. The mall shoe stores had blue flats and boots and open-toe stripper shoes, but no work-appropriate pumps.



I found two pairs of blue shoes at Neiman Marcus, the Manolo Blahniks from Sex and the City and the latest satin d'Orsay heel from Christian Louboutin - too well-known and not a good fit respectively, and both cost about $900. I went on and on and grew more disillusioned at every stop. "All shoe-makers are jerks!" I declared to anyone who would listen.

Weeks later, I was looking - again with no success- for a new briefcase. I'd spilt tea and food all over my bag that day. Then, half an hour before the mall was to close, an effortlessly fashionable woman passed in my peripheral vision wearing BLUE SUEDE HEELS! They were an enigmatic shade of grey-blue, I observed, as I chased her down in my own heels yelling "Hey, Girl-with-the-hot-shoes!" She got hers a year ago, she said, BUT had seen a similar pair at Zara a month ago. With only minutes left before closing, I ran upstairs to Zara and scanned the store for blue shoes. Seeing none, I grabbed a sienna suede pump and thrust it at a sales associate: "I just saw a girl with shoes like these in blue! She said she got them here!" (I fictionalized a bit. She wanted to know what I wanted, not my life story.) She went to the back and pulled out one of only 2 pairs left, the one in my size. MY SIZE!


I'm sure there are other blue shoes out there that I would love, but this pair makes me happy and were about $80. The moral of the story is that you never find love when you're looking for it, but be ready to seize opportunity and it will come. Alternatively, start your own blog, and no one can stop you from writing about shoes. THE END.