Shoeuthanasia...

Almost 4 years ago, during my trip to Spain, Tita Evelyn bought me to one of the sports shop in La Illa Mall to get me a pair of shoes. Initially, she suggested a pair of leather shoes - Spanish leather shoes are top quality, after all - but it wasn't my style. I told her that i'm more of a sneaker/athletic shoe kind of guy, and that how we ended up in that store.

Among rows and rows and rows and rows and rows and row (yup, there were that many rows) of shoes, one pair caught my eye. It was a pair of adidas running shoes, in different shades of gray, with reflectorized stripes. The moment I slipped them on, they felt so light and comfortable, making it ideal for walking and running. Needless to say, this was the pair for me.

Now, almost 4 years of excellent service to me, these shoes are just about ready to give up. The signs of wear and tear started appearing this year, beginning with the edges of the sole coming off, to little tears in the fabric appearing. But the past few months, the damage began growing bigger, and bigger, like 1/8 of the sole coming off the base.

Normally, this is a clear sign that it's time for this pair to retire and move on to that big Foot Locker outlet in the sky. But I love this pair so much that my decision was to put up a fight to keep it alive a few years more. So i've had a passionate love affair with SupaGlue the past few weeks - patiently glueing every bit of the sole back to the base. It usually works, but when I start walking, another part of the sole manages to unhinge itself. So I stick it on again.

The situation is actually quite bad that i'm contemplating carrying a small tube of SupaGlue each time I use them. In case of emergency, as they say. But this extreme measure is also giving me the impression that I should simply give up and let it go.

After all, they've been with me through a lot of things. Trips all around Europe, Asia, Mexico and the U.S. (Making it my most travelled piece of property, along with the Delsey bag given to me by Marite in 2002.) I've waded through floods with it, and it's my shoe of choice whenever the rains pour like crazy. Ergo, it lived a full life.

But like many things that have emotional significance to us, it's hard to give up on, much less - let go - of things that we love so much. That no matter how we convince ourselves that it's ok, and sometimes try to find a replacement to what we need to give up, it's still hard. This I know for a fact because I already bought 3 shoes to "replace" it, but I end up using the old one more often than the new ones.

I guess some things are just irreplaceable.