From the dark covers of my yellow and white four-poster bed, I woke up breathless and terrified.  I could hear their far away voices like a lighthouse, a tiny light shining in the fog of a 4 year old’s bad dream.  The peals of muffled laughter and the clink clink clink of the ice whirling in the eddies of a grown up drink grounded me to the safety of my home.

I knew I wasn’t supposed to come back out of my bedroom. Teeth brushed, I made my rounds earlier, twirling in my rick-rack nightgown before mama & daddy’s friends, and then a cascade of sticky kisses shuffled me off to bed. Now, I pressed my ear to the door and my cheek to the cold brass doorknob, and felt my hand start to turn it silently. I watched my feet pad down the long parquet hallway and when I got to the living room, I hesitated slightly with a tiny exhale, enough to get her to turn her head.

“Amy Suzanne! What’s wrong, sweet dumplin’?”

The sound of her voice set free the frightened tears I had been holding in, and she put her hand out for me. Without another word, she uncrossed her legs and settled back into the chair, and I climbed up and pressed my body into a tight ball, my shins parallel to her thighs, bare toes grazing the tops of her knees, her hand rubbing my bony spine. With my head on her chest, and hearing the familiar creak of the old rocking chair where she nursed me just a few years before, my eyes got heavy and I faded away to sleep, safe, warm and loved.

So after the tragic news that my fashion sneakers were lost in the Toilet Flood of ‘15, I had many people ask, “What THE HELL is a fashion sneaker?”

I’m so glad you asked. Fashion sneakers have changed my life*.

After I started my new job at the Museum, my left foot started to hurt quite a bit.  Like every step I took was ouch stoppit stoppit. I complained to my friend Maddy and she said, “are you walking all over DC in those cute little patent leather green ballet flats?” Me: “um, yes. but not just green; I have them in nude, too.”  (I could hear her adorably sighing via instant messenger.) Maddy: “That’s probably why your feet hurt. Ballet flats aren’t great for walking.”

Later that night I was on a regularly scheduled call with my parents and was telling them of my feet woes. My dad suggested I wear sneakers, although b/c we’re from the south, he called them “tennis shoes”.  I think my response was “Ew. Dad, no,” and then something like how I’d rather bear the pain than be caught dead wearing a business suit and tennis shoes like Melanie Griffith from Working Girl**.  Also, I don’t wear a business suit, or a suit of any kind really, to work, so my options are vast.

So, Maddy isn’t just a friend — she also writes an amazing fashion blog for the fiscally responsible gal called “Style Me Thrifty”.  Turns out she had been doing a little research for a post about commuter shoes and immediately told me that there were options available that lived between unsupported ballet flats, sensible pumps (which I never wear anymore) and tennis shoes.

Turns out, I love the Skechers memory foam jonx (you can Google it yourself) so much that I wear them on other occasions than commuting, which is why I came up with the term Fashion Sneaker.

As much as I try to deny it, I actually am turning 40 in 6 months, and that foot pain that I had was sesamoiditis, and I got orthotic insoles. Because I’m old, y’all! 

So basically, I DGAF if anyone likes ‘em or not….They’re comfortable and not offensive to Maddy who writes a fashion blog.  In my forties, “not offensive to a fashion blogger” is my standard.  Altogether now, sigh.

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*Just thought of a new blog post: All The Things Recently That Have Changed My Life (my microwave egg cooker! spray lotion!)

**I could do a whole post on that hair!