Cheap Shoes

     Most of my adult life has been lived in cheap shoes.  Not my childhood though, when I was a girl a trip to the shoe store was a magical thing.  You sat in a chair and the shoe salesman sat on the stool in front of you, measured your foot, brought you shoes and laced them up.  All you had to do was walk around.  If I got to wear the shoes home from the store, I was convinced everyone on the sidewalk was looking at them so I  goose stepped shamelessly so they could see better.  Fortunately, I outgrew the need for expensive, narrow width shoes, unfortunately, shoe stores outgrew the need for the kind of service that had made it so special.  These days you find your own shoe, dig your size out of the stacks of boxes and hunt for a place to sit and try it on; the salesperson will then take your money.  The magic is gone.
     When I started buying my own shoes they were inexpensive, but it didn't matter.  Anything that fit worked fine, slip ons, flip flops, no support--no problem.  Then, inexplicably, my feet got old.  Cheap shoes made them hurt.  Eventually even looking at pictures of strappy, unsupporting sandals made them hurt.  After my left foot had been hurting for months I was forced to see a podiatrist who diagnosed plantar fascitis, apparently it is caused by having and using feet for a number of years, in other words, getting old.  The doctor gave me an arch support, it wasn't too much of a nuisance except in sandals, but I discovered I didn't need it if I bought more expensive shoes.
     That was the beginning of the end.  Expensive shoes, expensive meds, falling arches, falling. . .everything else.  The same calm, quiet conditions I used to require in order to fall asleep, I now require in the bathroom.  It takes me two days to rest up from a two day trip. I can't sit still through a two hour concert, especially if I'm on bleachers.  Shouldn't a bonus butt be better on bleachers?  My knees don't do downhill.  My blood pressure is headed uphill.  I used to moisturize my feet with any old lotion, now it takes industrial strength shea butter.  I suppose the next thing to fail me will be my $7 at home hair dye kits and I'll have to go gray or to the beauty shop.
     One of the blessings of an empty nest is not having an empty bank account, which is good because that money will be needed for the expensive things my aging body requires.  Would I want to be young again?  No, I enjoy the wisdom and experience the years have given me.  But I wouldn't mind a body that would be satisfied with simple requirements like cheap shoes.