The English-language idiom The other shoe just dropped surrounds me like a late November squall, even in summer. Sometimes I feel the wind. Sometimes it passes. Other times one shoe gets the brunt of the gust and trips right off the ledge.

Its mate follows, leaping toward their lost lover. Thunder rumbles. Grey New Balance 574s, ratty old house slippers, Barbie-pink Birkenstocks, and the gym shoes that haven’t seen the light of day in months all come tumbling down and bury me until I’m tossing aside mismatched hand-me-down heels for just a sip of fresh air. My third-grade raspberry high-tops whisper of better days.

Caroline Calloway once said, “I’m a writer who hasn’t written any books.” Same. I am a writer who has written maybe one blog post a year for the last three to four years. A lone black Chelsea boot hisses at me from under the bed to at least, for the love of God, take down something so I can remember how to fit it into my tight forty-five, a.k.a. my bi-weekly therapy appointment. (Down from weekly as of recently… So, basically, I’m cured.)

What is it that makes doing something I love so difficult? Why do I only do it in frantic moments of crisis or never-ending slogs of strife?

One of my mother’s cow-print Manolos hits me square in the nose— Ooh, vintage!

I know the answer. And with it, a swarm of questions.

What if I’m a shit writer? What if my rare good work never gets seen where it matters? What if? What if? What if? If I’m not a shit writer, and someone who matters sees my work, when will they find out I’m lying? When will yet another shoestorm come my way? That none of this is real and I’m not who I said I was? That my perfectionism prevents me from putting pen to paper? That my New Balances are not, in fact, appropriate for the working world?

This is reading like a New Balance ad, but rest assured, it is only because I thought the shoe metaphor a good one. That said, I do switch between two pairs of identical 574s weekly. My other shoes are hidden away in shame. They spend their time nestled inside their two-inch-tall plastic homes, cursing me out loud but silently yearning to be plucked out of obscurity for my next “real shoe” worthy event.

I’m trying to stop fearing shoes, but I still close my laptop right at 5pm and walk around my starter apartment in nothing but socks. These freshly sourced, bought white but soon-to-turn-grey socks, complete with tiny vent holes for the hyperhidrosis-conscious, can be found in the miscellaneous aisle of your local grocery store, and pair wonderfully with any style of dropped shoe.*

*Ability to write without fear sold separately.