All Star Lo

I saw them in a window of a store in a tiny mall at the corner of Frederick and King. I’d never seen mint green converse and oh man did I want them. They were my favourite things. I walked past them everyday. The store had every pair of converse you could imagine. Special edition, the originals, new for Spring (30% off! You won’t beat these prices! What size can I grab you?). I had $25 a week for groceries, eating egg salad sandwiches for every meal, paying $10 an hour at an Internet cafe just to check my emails, and cold calling strangers from the basement of Fred Astaire’s Dance Studio to tell them they “won a gift certificate for a free lesson!”. I just couldn’t justify a new pair of shoes that didn’t have a specific purpose. Gym shoes - yes. Work shoes - yes. Mint green converse that I won’t wear because I’m afraid of getting them dirty - no. 

I got a new job in a different direction with different stores and different things in windows. I quit that job too (because I’m not the kind of girl who sticks to things) and moved away to go to school. I forgot my old postal code and the name of the landlord and hey what was that restaurant just off Weber St with the amazing almond soo-guy? Sometimes something is everything you’ve ever wanted and then a few months later you give the parking space it occupied to something or someone completely different. 

Six years, one college degree, eight jobs, four cities, two failed relationships, and thousands of favourite things later, I found myself standing outside that store with $100 of ‘I’m-sorry-I-cheated-on-you-a-year-ago-and-I-still-feel-guilty’ money burning a hole in my pocket. The sales associate said they didn’t have a size 9. Did I want to try an 8½? That’s the biggest we have. Yeah sure, I guess. They were a little snug, but wearable, and I bought them for the sake of buying them. 

Now I wear them to every concert I go to. Not as a fashion statement or any other aesthetic reason. I wear them to prove to my 20 year old self that I have done things. That I have stood in the middle of a crowd of thousands and I have felt something. That I have made friends that have become family and that there’s no shame in changing your mind on what you want to be when you grow up or who your favourite band is. They’ve skidded on concrete trying to get to my seat before the opening act and braced my skin from the winter cold waiting for the line to move inside and they’ve given me blisters on the streets of Chicago and stepped on questionable substances during standing ovations. When I feel the bass of the opening chords of that song I love vibrating through the worn down rubber soles and take a few steps closer to the stage while shamelessly screaming the words out of tune I forget that there was once I time I felt so lost. When all I wanted was to be able to buy a new pair of shoes. Oh girl, the things you will do. The things you will love. Just wait. The show’s about to start.