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Shoes, Disability and Me
The first pair of shoes I remember loving were bright orange. Neon orange. They were gaudy, cheap trainers; not Nike or Adidas but some other unremarkable, unfashionable brand — the kind of brand other kids at school would mock you for wearing, like the “two stripe” knock-off Adidas tracksuits that were all the rage among parents who wanted their kids to fit in but (not unreasonably) baulked at the obscene prices of the high-end brands for what was identical clothing to the cheaper stuff.
I didn’t get mocked for my cheap orange trainers — at least, not that I remember. And at least not to my face. Even would-be bullies, I suspect, drew the line at mocking the disabled kid’s shoes.
It’s hard to know how long those orange beauties lasted, but it couldn’t have been long. My shoes never last; cerebral palsy means I blow through them in weeks and months rather than years, holes torn through the soles and toes by being rather dragged along unforgiving pavements.
I alternate two competing strategies to cope with this.
- Buy cheap shoes by the boatload. Who cares if they fall apart after two weeks? They cost £4!
- Buy expensive shoes and hope the better quality makes them last longer.
