The things we buy when we need to believe

The Shoes My Mother Told Me Not to Buy

Every pair came with the same question: “Can you walk in those?”

Photo by goffredo crollalanza on Unsplash

Dear Mom,

You should know that I finally got rid of most of the shoes.

I know.

It only took twenty years.

Shopping with you was always the same.

I’d pick up a pair of boots.

“Do you need those?”

“No.”

“How much are they?”

“$495.”

You’d look at me as though I had lost my mind.

“Can you walk in those?”

“I can’t walk, period.”

You never laughed as hard as I did at that answer.

The truth was, the shoes were never really about walking.

They were about possibility.

For years after the stroke, I had almost no choice in footwear. My brace fit into a handful of ugly orthopedic shoes, and that was that. Shoe shopping was less of a fashion decision and more of a medical accommodation.

Then I got rid of the brace.

Suddenly, there were boots.

Sandals.

Heels.

Ridiculous shoes.

Expensive shoes.

Shoes that had absolutely no business ending up in my closet.

After years of limitations, an entire world had opened up.

Suddenly, there was an entire wall of shoes nobody had told me I could have.

I bought more than I needed.

Much more.

Not because I was going to wear them.

Because after years of loss, abundance felt glorious.

After years of choosing shoes based on whether I could fit a brace into them, I started choosing them simply because they were beautiful.

Every pair represented a small victory.

A declaration that my world had become bigger again.

“What do you need six pairs for?”

“I don’t.”

Looking back, those conversations were hilarious.

Especially because neither of us was really talking about shoes.

You thought I was buying shoes.

I was buying freedom.

Every pair felt like evidence that my life had expanded again.

And maybe something else, too.

Hope.

Hope that my balance would improve.

Hope that physical therapy would unlock one more level of recovery.

Hope that next year I would walk a little better than this year.

The shoes weren’t really shoes.

They were possibility with a price tag.

Most of them spent more time in boxes than on my feet.

But that was never the point.

The point was that after years of loss, I could choose them.

And choosing felt wonderful.

When I cleaned out my closet recently, I found enough unworn shoes to open a small boutique.

I could practically hear your voice.

“Do you need those?”

Apparently not.

So I donated most of them.

The boots.

The sandals.

The shoes you warned me not to buy.

The funny thing is that getting rid of them didn’t feel sad.

By then, I finally understood something neither of us could quite put into words while standing in those department stores.

The hope was never in the shoes.

The hope was in me.

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Victoria Ponte — 2026.