If The Shoe Fits....

We all wear many hats in our lives but it’s the shoes that hold us up and carry us along during our day-to-day journeys and escapades that life often throws at us. We choose different shoes for different occasions, hoping we have picked the right one to pull us through and not leave us at the end of the day sore and wishing we had chosen differently.

This past weekend brought the VB Vanderkittens together in a variety of settings for many reasons, and hence there were lots of shoes involved. Friday night’s birthday bash for our fearless leader Barb V. gave all of us some down time and the chance to unwind from our long work weeks. We all had on our party shoes! As well, our courageous kitten Laura was back in town for a reprieve from tending to her dear husband Bill whom we are all praying for and sending our well wishes to! Although we know Laura is a nurturing, loving caretaker, I’m not sure nursing shoes are quite her style? (I’m thinking more of a stacked wedge with some cute strap across the back is probably more along the lines here.) But we know she is nonetheless fulfilling her “nursing” duties and making sure what needs to get done is getting done!

On Sunday Barb V., Donna, Maggie, Joie, Meredith, and Claudia donned their biking shoes and headed off to join the hundred or so other cyclists across the City of Virginia Beach to memorialize on our fellow citizens and cyclists Daniel Wayne Hersh and . It was humbling to be a part of something so much bigger than ourselves, and despite the sadness associated with the event, there were no other shoes we would have wanted to be wearing that morning.

BJ headed up to DC and donned her daughter – in- law shoes helping to celebrate Bob’s mother’s 90th birthday! I bet that woman has worn some interesting shoes in her lifetime!

I tell my husband often, it’s all about the shoes, but this weekend when I started to think about the paths we take and the trials and tribulations we face in our lives, it’s an interesting analogy to explore. The shoes we wear for the different experiences we weather in life support us and define us as much as the experiences themselves. Some of them last us a long time, and others only a season. We find the need to replace them here and there but sometimes we hang on to the worn ones despite the fact we may never wear them again. It is painfully difficult for me to part with shoes. I guess I always think there may be a “what if”, and so I hold onto them. I’ll leave you with these parting words; just as experiences, friends, jobs, romances, and places to live etc… may come and go, how we choose to react to these circumstances ultimately defines us. We hopefully make the right choices and when we don’t we learn, just as every once in a while we buy a pair of shoes we think are going to be great but they really aren’t. As the saying goes, If the Shoe Fits…if not, just try another pair, it’s the feet inside that really matter!