Inventory

I am not entirely sure how or when it happened, but somehow I have passed the twenty mark.

I have no idea how someone could possibly need twenty-plus pairs of shoes. Especially someone like myself who has always wondered how on earth a girl could possibly need twenty-plus pairs of shoes. But I must, because I rarely buy shoes unless I need them, and there are perhaps three pairs of shoes in my closet, at most, that I have bought for reasons other than necessity, and since I now have twenty-three pairs of shoes it must mean that I need at least twenty pairs.

It used to be that I could get by on four. All I needed was:

• 1 pair of church shoes
  
• 1 pair of school shoes
  
• 1 pair of sandals for the summertime
  
• 1 pair of tennis shoes for PE or hiking or ward service projects or yardwork
  
• 1 pair of slippers

Of course, at various times during my childhood I had reason to acquire ballet slippers and tap shoes, baseball cleats, basketball shoes, hiking boots, water socks, and other specialized forms of footwear, but I usually only had one or two of these at a time. And by the time I entered college I was still a half-dozen-pairs-of-shoes girl, and fell into at least a few friendships with people much like myself so that I didn’t feel I was somehow deficient in femininity for lacking a more extensive collection.

Like I said, I don’t know what happened. Because now my shoe collection is much larger. I have:

• 1 pair of black Sunday shoes
  
• 1 pair of black Sunday shoes that are not quite as clunky and more comfortable for when I want to choose comfort over fashion
  
• 1 pair of heelless black Sunday shoes that fit the fashion and the comfort requirements (imagine that)
  
• 1 pair of brown Sunday shoes when black doesn’t go with my outfit
  
• 1 pair of Sunday-appropriate black sandals for the summertime
  
• 1 pair of Sunday-appropriate white sandals for the summertime when black sandals just don’t work with my outfit
  
• 1 pair of Sunday-appropriate brown sandals for the summertime when black or white sandals just don’t work with my outfit
  
• 1 pair of Sunday-appropriate light brown sandals for summertime when the other brown sandals are too dark a shade of brown, and that also have straps and can be worn with everyday outfits (unlike the other pair of brown sandals)
  
• 1 pair of really cute red sandals just for fun that are casual enough to wear on a weekday but nice enough to wear on a Sunday
  
• 1 pair of brown everyday shoes
  
• 1 pair of brown everyday shoes with more traction, which I acquired when winter struck and I realized my other brown everyday shoes weren’t cutting it on the ice
  
• 1 pair of brown everyday shoes that are a lighter shade of brown and, unlike the other two, can be worn sockless with shorts during the summer
  
• 1 pair of brown everyday shoes that are also nice enough to wear if I’m dressed slightly up for teaching or a presentation or something like that
  
• 1 pair of black everyday shoes if I really and truly cannot wear brown with my outfit (which is rare for everyday-wear, but not unthinkable)
  
• 1 pair of royal blue everyday, just for fun, that I can only wear with approximately one outfit, and that can also pass for cycling shoes at a distance until I actually get cycling shoes, because my brother told me that I probably look funny riding my new road bike in tennis shoes
  
• 1 pair of black flip-flops for the summertime
  
• 1 pair of bubblegum pink $1 flip-flops which I bought in New York to wear in the showers at the hostel (because one look at the showers convinced me that I didn’t want to step in there barefoot)
  
• 1 pair of Tevas if I want more support than flip-flops or if I’m going hiking in the Narrows
  
• 1 pair of running shoes for, well, running of course
  
• 1 pair of retired running shoes for hiking or ward service projects or Monday night volleyball
  
• 1 pair of hiking boots
  
• 1 pair of winter boots that are convenient for taking out the trash in a snowstorm or for avoiding shoelaces when my fingers are numb after a day of skiing
  
• 1 pair of fuzzy slippers from my little sister

As I’m sure you can tell from this list, almost every single one of these pairs of shoes is absolutely essential to my existence.

The problem, I think, is that I have become aware of my feet. It used to be that shoes were just a necessity, not really part of the outfit. My fashion sense was a bit developmentally delayed, and throughout high school I thought nothing of throwing on the same pair of Vans every day of the week, mostly because my school wardrobe consisted primarily of jeans and t-shirts and only the most casual and nondescript of any clothes that might be termed fashionable. It wasn’t until I began to differentiate within my closet, when I added cords and overalls and khakis and cut-offs to my pants collection, stopped refusing to shop at Gap or other name-brand stores, began layering, and became more aware of what I and other people were wearing in general, that I noticed that my everyday shoes could, in fact, really not go well with all my everyday clothes. But this observation is just a black hole, because once you begin noticing that one pair of shoes doesn’t necessarily go as well with one outfit as another pair of shoes, you begin to believe that you need a different pair of shoes for every type of outfit, and then that you need a different pair of shoes for every single outfit, and then that, in fact, multiple types of shoes with one outfit can change the effect entirely and therefore it might wise to have several options for each outfit, and by that time you have become one of those women you see in magazines who have entire closets just for their hundreds, even thousands, of shoes.

That must be how it happens.

But I am not there yet. I may have more than five pairs of shoes in my closet, but I am still only a twenty-pair girl. In fact, I like to believe that at heart I am still only a five-pair girl (well, ten-pair, maybe), that if I was a better shoe-shopper, if I was willing to hunt through a half dozen stores for just the right pair, and shell out as much as I'm willing to spend on a pair of running shoes for one sturdy, fashionable, multi-purpose pair of shoes rather than several pairs of much cheaper shoes that never turn out to be quite what I was hoping for...theoretically it seems that I ought to be able to trim my shoe wardrobe down to more reasonable numbers.

But simplification will have to wait until I have more money and more patience, and goodness knows right now I need those twenty pairs.