Roof with a Hole or Shoe with a Hole

Today I'm going to talk about footwear. Maybe not the most exhilarating topic in the world, but I've always had questions about why one would put saddle shoes on a 3-year-old kid with CP. Yes, unfortunately I have pictures to prove it. Why did I decide to write a whole piece about this? Living with CP, what goes on my feet is absolutely essential and critical to how I navigate the world. Thankfully, I don't remember a lot about saddle shoes other than that they were painful and I never wanted to wear them. Thank you 1980s. For me, the shoe game is about durability and stability. I've gone through every type of shoe phase you can fathom.

Early on, there were the saddle shoes that were not ideal for my condition or my comfort. Then I spent a lot of time in sneakers outfitted with braces and uncomfortable wax molds trying to correct my gait. I know that doctors and physical therapists were just trying to do me a favor with these tools, but the stuff was painfully uncomfortable, and I'm not sure it did any good.

Footwear in general is difficult for me, I need it to be able to withstand movement that it's not designed for, I need to be able to function in it, I need to make sure it's something that's not going to inhibit my balance, and putting shoes on my feet is one of the most difficult physical tasks of my day a lot of the time. 

Shoes I can't stand or can't stand in, flip-flops. The lack of dexterity on my left foot toes makes it insanely hard and nearly impossible to walk around in flip flops. Also painful. Cowboy boots. Right now, you might be thinking why on Earth would you ever need to wear cowboy boots Tim? Need is probably not the right descriptor, but let's just say it wasn't abnormal for me to need to put on a pair of cowboy boots and one can like the idea but not the practice of it. Being up on the heels of the boots obstructs my balance. They also have a somewhat slippery surface which further obstructs my balance. Then of course there's the way the boot is designed to eliminate anything resembling comfort. Mind you, my feet don't move the same way as the average foot. They move where the spasticity dictates they're going to move. This affects every piece of footwear I ever put on.

 I spent something to the tune of every other weekend for 5 years skiing. if you've ever put on a pair of ski boots especially in the era I'm talking about, something like over 30 years ago, those boots were hard, heavy, inflexible, and unforgiving. The image that comes to my mind when putting on ski boots is tying cinder blocks to my feet and then telling me to walk. I was fine on the skis, going down the mountain, but once I unclipped and had to walk in those damn boots it was pretty much game over.

I've tried every footwear option you can imagine, from basketball shoes like Jordans, albeit mine were second hand, to the ugly as sin special walking shoes designed for no one in particular. Imagine being in Middle School walking around in the exact same shoe, but of a different size then my adult father. Yes, he and I had the same shoes for a time. Unfortunately, that time was the eighth grade. That definitely scored me some points with my peers, not. I also went through many eras of cheap Payless Shoe Store shoes that I'm not sure how any of them survived the wear and tear I put on a pair of shoes.

“The roof’s got a hole in it and everything's been ruined by the rain” (Roof with a Hole, Meat Puppets). 

I spent many many years probably from high school until just a couple of years ago wearing nothing but Vans on my feet because they were comfortable and usually held up to the beating that I would give them. However, that reached a point where even those couldn't take the wear and tear of my gait. I started replacing shoes every quarter. And why on Earth would I have to do that? my left foot drags significantly more than the right and so I would inadvertently wear a hole straight through the shoe as if I had stepped on a nail or shot it with a bullet. I had countless pairs of shoes that were wasted because I lost the left shoe due to wearing a hole through it. After several years of this, I decided to look for something different. For about the past year and a half, I've been wearing a grip intensive hiking shoe every day. even that shoe is being put to its limits by the way my CP makes me move.

I don't wear dress shoes a lot, not because I hate dressing up, although that's mostly true, but because they don't tend to sit securely on my feet, which makes me feel more unsteady when I move. The most important thing to me when I'm moving around is feeling safe on my feet. Anything that gets in the way of that is a hindrance that I do not wish to deal with.