Have you ever been driving down the road and see a single shoe laying in the street? I've always wondered what the circumstances were that someone would leave a shoe in the open like roadkill. Were they driving with their foot out the window? Did they just happen to take their shoe off and toss it out the window? Having worn quite a few shoes in my time, I've found that it was take effort to lose on while driving. Still I try to imagine the people who have lost something like that. They are in a unique position where they're probably not able to simply stop and pick it back up again. And so it sits, left behind.
For the first two years I was in college I rode a bike to school. It wasn't very far, but it was in Phoenix. When I first moved there my dad and I found a nearby bike shop and bought a new bike, since shipping my old one wasn't practical. The new bike was cursed. I wasn't prepared for life in the city while on a bike. Early on I rode my bike to the movies. When I came out someone had stolen my front tire. So it was a long walk back to the bike shop to buy a new tire. Then while ride home I was hit by a car. Well technically I hit him. It was safer to ride on the sidewalk than in the street. The car was sitting at a stop sign and I thought for sure he wasn't going to move because it was obvious I was heading towards him. Instead he pulled out in front of me. My front wheel hit his right quarter panel and I flipped over onto his windshield. Thankfully I wasn't hurt, but that new tire I bought was no longer circular. Another long walk back to the bike shop. Then there was a strange incident with a potential roommate that forced me to store my bike on my balcony. The next morning it was gone, which in retrospect was probably a good thing because I think that bike was trying to kill me. So my father ended up having to ship my old bicycle down to me, which really defeated the purpose in the first place. I rode that bike for another year before I finally bought my truck. When it was time to move to my new apartment after graduating from college, I took that bike down to the dumpster and left it there. I no longer wanted anything to do with bikes. I doubt that everything that gets left behind has some bizarre story behind it, but we all have our reasons for ditching something.
Before I talked about moving, I mentioned how it was a chance to decide what comes with us. When we move it's the most obvious time to really reevaluate what we have in our lives and if they're important enough for us to make the effort to drag them along for whatever comes next. This process isn't just limited to moving or is it limited to things. Think about all the people you've known in your life and what fraction of them are still around. I have been on both sides of leaving someone behind. At least for me in a lot of cases it's not normally anything specific that causes me to explicitly leave someone behind. It just sort of happens, which I suppose must be how it is for other people. Still there is a bit of ego involved when you find out someone has left you behind. It used to be something like that would make me wonder about what it was that I did or didn't do that caused use to go our separate ways without even saying anything. Now I just see it as a natural progression of things. The relationship ran its course and it's time to move on, although it seems in many cases only one person is aware that things are ending.
I've also thought a lot about the various places we reside over the course of our lives. There are those people that leave home the first chance they get and never go back. For them they were forced to live there for far too long without choice and now that they are free, they practically run. Leaving home is interesting because if you go far enough away you can reinvent yourself. If you're like me then growing up meant that you pretty much knew everyone for a very long time. The people in high school were probably the same ones you went to elementary school with. Sure there were some new people along the way, but for the most part everyone had a preconceived notion about who you are because that's who you've always been. When you leave home you can leave yourself behind if you want. Obviously you're still you, but everyone you meet is meeting you for the first time and doesn't have eighteen or so years of history with you. This allows you to get rid of those preconceived ideas that you've been carrying around most of your childhood. So like so many other things, we have the option of what we take with us. Lately I've been wondering if those things, people, and places that seemingly are holding us down are also the things that keep us grounded in a way that we don't get too far away from ourselves. I can't decide if that's a good thing or not.
