So, You Spent An Entire Summer Wearing White Shoes

1. Congratulations! You survived your very first summer in a new city, and you did it without ever taking off the white shoes you purchased at the very end of spring. The shoes turned out to be surprisingly comfortable, at least while they were on your feet.

2. Some mornings you woke up and stretched out your legs and your calves would seize up in protest, cramps like your body just remembered you had muscles and wanted to be like, get out of there you dumb muscles we hate you. The pain would be worse right under your knee but you would still instinctively pull your legs up to your chest, thinking it was the kind of pain resorting to a fetal position would solve.

3. You bought a white shoe polish in June and used it every so often. For a few minutes, everything would seem better; but the more you looked at your shoes the more the white polish seemed to be evaporating. Not even rubbing off. Just…disappearing. The shoes seemed permanently grimy.

4. When people said they liked your shoes, you said thank you, and grimaced a little as you joined their stare. Couldn’t they see the dirt embedded in every crevice, the cracks from where your stupidly high arches had split the leather? They really seem sincere. Begin to think the dirt is all in your head. Like Lady Macbeth, but with…fashion.

5. The other pair of white shoes are almost offensively pristine. There is one small smudge from a splash of iced coffee, but besides that, they are easily mistaken for brand new. You’re proud of the second pair of white shoes.

6. It’s a false pride because you know they’re only so pristine because you barely wore them. The first weekend you bought them, you wore them every single day; one day you walked a long distance to get to a big park, and then you walked through that whole park, and then you walked the long distance home, and then went out that night, and the next day the welts on the tops of your feet were so gross you had to wear Band-Aids not for the pain but just because you couldn’t even look at them. Even though you know it’s your stupidly high arches you blamed the shoes and avoided wearing them for months.

7. In August, tentatively start wearing the second pair around the city. Some days they are just as comfortable as you were promised; some days they are agonizing. You prefer the look of the other shoes anyway, even if they are embarrassingly dirty.

8. As Labor Day approaches, consider retiring the white shoes. Remember that the rule about not wearing white after Labor Day is dumb.

9. Consider buying white shoes for winter.