There comes a point in every girl’s life when she looks at the pair of absolutely disgusting sneakers sitting in the back of her closet and realizes they haven’t taken a stroll down her favorite college strip, full of bars and late-night pizza, in far too long.
You know the ones I’m talking about.
The once-white sneakers that have survived frat darties, gamedays, sticky bar floors and maybe a few questionable decisions. These shoes have made the late-night trek home more times than we can count. They’ve seen us at our best, worst and everything in between.
And somehow, those same shoes that once accompanied us everywhere have been replaced by an expensive pair of kitten heels.
I know what you’re thinking. They are just a pair of shoes, and technically, you’re right. But I can’t help feeling like there’s something a little heartbreaking about saying goodbye to the shoes that carried us through some of the most transformative years of our lives.
In between ordering vodka cranberries at the bar and learning to appreciate a glass of wine over dinner, we started growing up.
And the weird thing is, I am not sure when we made the switch.
When Did We Become Heel Girls?
I used to think growing up would feel like this big, monumental moment. Like one day, I would wake up and have life figured out. I would know exactly where I was headed, what I wanted and who I was supposed to become.
Instead, growing up happened in the smallest of ways.
It happened when I started preferring dinner reservations over crowded bars, when getting ready became almost more fun than going out and when the best part of Friday night was coming home, taking off my makeup and crawling into bed.
And unconsciously, it happened the minute I started reaching for a pair of heels instead of sneakers.
Don’t get me wrong, I still love a night out. I love dancing with my girlfriends, music blasting, with no idea where the rest of the night might take us.
But it feels different now.
A Little Love for the Girl in the Sneakers
I think there’s something beautiful about the girl who wore those dirty sneakers.
She didn’t have a ten-year plan. She probably cried in the bathroom stall over a guy, ordered plenty of late-night food deliveries, and swore she was never going out again, only to do it all over the next weekend.
Together, she and those shoes were collecting stories, making friends and falling in and out of love, all while figuring out who she wanted to be.
And while there is a beauty in growing up and changing, I can’t help but feel nostalgic for the girl I used to be.
Growing up is strange. You spend so much of your life anticipating the next chapter that sometimes you don’t realize you’re living through the very moments you’ll miss.
One day, you’re running across campus in your dirty sneakers, laughing with your girlfriends about something that probably won’t even be funny in the morning.
And the next, you’re standing in front of your closet, wondering which heels go best with your fancy dinner outfit.
Neither version is better than the other; they’re just different.
Here’s to the Next Pair of Shoes
Maybe that’s what growing up really is. Not a dramatic transformation, but a collection of little goodbyes we don’t even realize we’re saying.
Goodbye to the bars we basically lived in. Goodbye to the apartments we somehow ended up in after a night out. Goodbye to the version of ourselves who thought we had all the time in the world.
And hello to everything that’s waiting for us.
The kitten heels aren’t a sign that the fun is over, they’re just proof that the fun is starting to take on a new form.
And while I’m excited for everything that comes with getting older, I hope I never completely lose the girl who wore those questionably dirty sneakers.
After all, she’s the reason I get to be the woman wearing heels today.
So, here’s to the dirty club sneakers, the stories they could tell and the girls who wore them.
We had a good run. Literally.