My Cinderella Shoes

Shoes…such a wonderful topic for me to write about. There was a time, I used to be obsessed with shoes. My family used to tease me seeing my attraction towards beautiful shoes. I was not a fashionable girl. I never followed trends. As a kid, any dress my mom selected for me was fine. But shoes? That was a different story all together.

Such was my obsession with shoes, that whenever I first met a person, I would not look at their face, but their shoes. I believed that a book should not be judged by its cover, but a person can be definitely judged by their shoes. But when I was as kid, the person really didn’t matter to me, but the shoes did. The color, the pattern, the style, the decorations on it used to fascinate me.

So naturally, I longed to own the most hyped shoes in the history, Cinderella’s glass shoes!

We were a typical middle class family and so me and my sibling owned only two pairs of shoes at any time. One the sporty kind for the playground, running or games and another a normal robust sandal kind for the rest of the time. We had to take care of them and make them last until our toes threatened to rip the fabric! Come to think of it now, that was reasonable since kids grow up so fast. Having multiple fashionable pairs was a waste of money.

But my Cinderella infused mind had its boundaries. I was always angry on my parents for not allowing me to buy a fashionable pair. But one day when in the shop I saw a beautiful silver ballerina shoes with pointy toes adorned with a tiny silver butterfly on it my patience gave up. It even had little heels. It was not made of glass but it closely resembled my dream shoes!

My mother was astonished to see me wailing in public because I hardly ever did that. I wanted to but the Cinderella shoes instead of a nice black strong sandal my mom chose for me. She pestered me a lot but I didn’t budge. The shopkeeper saw his chance and suggested my mom to buy both of them for her ‘baby girl’. But my mom refused. She made deal with me. I could have those Cinderella shoes but nothing else. I had to make them work for a year. She won’t buy another shoes for me. I was thrilled. Who wanted those ugly black sandals when I have a Cinderella shoe for myself!

I was on cloud nine. I felt like a princess when I wore it. My friends loved them. The ‘tick tock’ sound it made when I walked, made me feel no less than a diva. Reality struck me hard in a few weeks. The cute silver butterfly popped out when it got hit by the door accidently. I glued it back but the discomfort that I felt while walking in that pretty shoe was becoming prominent with each passing day. It seemed to poke my feet from all ends. I longed for it to become softer with each use but to no avail. It remained the way it was. All my fantasy ended when one day I tripped because of it on a busy street and fell flat in front of everyone. My embarrassment knew no bounds. But the pain that I endured due to my sprained ankle was much lesser than the pain of letting go of my dream shoes forever. My mother took it from me and I never asked what she did with them. From that day till now I have always bought comfortable shoes, never the flashy ones.

The Cinderella shoe taught me a life lesson. All that shines is not gold!

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