the red pumas.

I paused and looked down at my red Pumas kept near the front door.  For a second, I thought to myself that I shouldn't put them on, but I went ahead and slipped my feet in them anyhow, opened the door, and snuck into the night.  He was waiting for me to arrive.  And while the pretense was innocent enough, I'm sure we were both just kidding ourselves to uphold the roles of social decorum we had perfected over the years.  My heart was hurting; my head was a mess; he was company on a chilly, lonely, night.  The ingredients were there and I was hungry.

"I like your shoes," he said.  I smiled.  Of course he would - they were kind of awesome.

I didn't know then, but that night was certainly a turning point in my life.  It was the night that started a spiral of occurrences; mostly negative, all memorable.  It ended friendships, forced me to make involuntary decisions, and turned my life to the current course that it's on.  I learned what it felt like to disregard another's feelings to save my own.  I learned what it was like to prioritize myself above all others.  I learned that I could do both much too easily, suffering only a few moments of hesitation that were easily overpowered by a mountain of self-preservation.  

And when I snapped out of it, finally realizing the error in my ways, finally acknowleding that I was clinging onto something temporary while forsaking something potentially permanent, I again found myself pausing at yet another front door - this time at one that was entirely unfamiliar to my eyes - before slipping on my red Pumas for the second time that night.  I headed home.  I then engaged in honest, painful, conversations.  I owned up, confessed, but I've never fully recovered.  Whereas most of memories fall to a soft blur with each passing year -- this one remains crystal clear.

* * *

A few years later, in a completely different place, with an entirely different man, in a seemingly different existence, he told me that he purchased a pair of red Pumas.  I smirked.  "I had a pair once upon a time. . ." 

Life.  It's humorous at times.