Like a lot of women I have many pair of shoes. Unlike most women my shoes tend to be flat and comfortable. I own heels but they stay in boxes at the back of the closet unless I’m going somewhere fancy and dressy. Most of the time I wear flat, comfy shoes or short heels.

I have one pair of shoes I’m particularly fond of. I picked them up at Ross for $20 before I went to Peru. They are slip on, low rise, leather shoes and they are like walking on air. I also went to Clarks and bought a cute pair of $120 Mary Janes but the $20 specials turned out to be the shoes of choice.

My shoes also have kind of a life of their own and they live in various places in my room. Most of the time they sneak out en masse and park themselves in front of my dressers. Occasionally I toss them all back in the closet – generally on the right side. I have a shoe rack but the shoes rebel, scattering themselves helter skelter as they please. I also have a shoe bag thing on the left side of the closet for seldom worn shoes.

A couple of weeks ago I went to put on my favorite black shoes and they were not in front of the dresser. Hmm.. a lot of other shoes were there but not those. I looked in the closet – I didn’t see them. I started hauling shoes out and re-arranging them in pairs but no favorite shoes were to be found. I was sad and confused.

I found another pair of shoes (2nd favorite pair of black shoes) and went off to my meeting. I decided that I must have left favorite shoes in Oceanside and they were gone. That hardly seemed possible since I was pretty sure I had worn flip flops and/or running shoes down there and yet my shoes were gone and there was no other explanation.

I was so sad. I thought about how I tramped all over in Peru in those shoes and about how they could never be replaced – I didn’t even know who made them. Then I thought about how for many women in Peru a lost a pair of shoes would leave them with no shoes at all or with maybe a pair of sandals. That was a sobering thought and forced me to rapidly get over my sense of loss and count my blessings.

A few days ago I was trying to figure out which of my many running shoes I wanted to wear. I just wasn’t in the mood for the ones currently in circulation and needed an old stand-by and I knew some of them were in the shoe bag on the left side of the closet. I looked in there and what should I spy with my little eye? FAVORITE BLACK LEATHER SHOES! Not lost at all.

In a similar vein, as I was getting ready for Anchorman I went through my transition bag and mentally through my transitions and I realized my race belt was missing. For the uneducated a race belt is an elastic belt with a couple of clips on it that you use to attach your bib number to. It keeps you from having to pin the number on your shirt which, for a triathlon that starts with a swim, doesn’t work so well. So I’m frantically ripping apart the transition bag trying to find the belts. No belts. I go through the drawers where they should be. No belts. I clearly remember unpacking from The Relay and putting them away but I cannot, not for the life of me, remember where I put them. It’s now 10:30 PM and I have to get up at 3:45 to get ready for this race – CRAP! I think to myself, don’t panic… just go brush your teeth, relax your mind and you will remember. Teeth brushed – memory gone. Finally I looked at another drawer unit and thought “oh yeah- I have some room in there. Maybe that’s where I put them” and sure enough – there they were. Phew! I finished packing and hit the sack.

I thought about all of this for a while and it occurred to me that it’s really nice that I can turn my thoughts from my personal loss to the plight of shoeless women in Peru. It’s also nice that if I put something on the back burner of my mind it will usually wander forward and I’ll find it. But mostly I thought…. I had a thought… what was that thought? I know I had one….hmmmm… I’ll get back to you when I find it.