My Very Own Shoes

One of my favorite things when I was a little kid was to pull out a pair of my father's dress shoes and clomp around the house.  They barely stayed on and there was no hope at all I'd ever fit into them. Two of my feet fit into one of his shoes.

It's an interesting expression, 'having big shoes to fill', when you apply it to building a life, because invariably there is always someone ahead who has done everything first.  No one skips a predecessor who has done it, worked it, played it, raised it, or believed it.  And very likely it was done thoroughly and with great panache.

Thankfully, Lifekeeping doesn't remind us of that too often. Everything feels like a personal first as we work our own booth, swap in and out relationships and jobs, go up and down ladders while juggling plates. 

So what is it about being asked to fill big shoes that causes such anxiety and self doubt? Here we've been happily owning our journey and building off the experience and knowledge of others the whole time, millions of times over... and then the dreaded words of ... 'boy, you have some big shoes to fill!' Isn't that just the mantra of people resistant to change?

I understand that. I overheard a conversation with the boys talking about buying our old house that was for sale. And the girls are really attached to our house here, the wallpaper, the Wall of Fame, the yard.

I was mulling all of this over the other day and darned if I didn't remember about those big old shoes of my dad. It was really fun to try them on for size but they sometimes caused me to stumble and trip. And when the sun came out and friends rang the bell,  I was back in my own shoes in a flash and taking off at a run.

New anythings take adjustment, and in the end the only shoes that you want to be wearing are your own.