These are my tennies. I bought them back in 2022. Softball season was coming up. I had worn a hole in the pair I purchased pre-pandemic.
At the time, Joyce and I were still doing Mom Autism Money. Joseph Biden was still president, and we were pulling our way out of the deadliest winter of COVID in the States. Russia had just invaded Ukraine, and Kim Kardashian was insensitively using expletives to tell women to work after they had seen some of the worst workplace losses in recent history.
These shoes were made for walking
A lot happened over the ensuing years. While I bought these shoes for the baseball diamond, they’ve truly seen so much more.
They’ve tread the streets of San Juan and New York, walking me through moments of both magic and disillusionment.
They’ve reverently walked the hollowed grounds of the George Floyd memorial.
These shoes depressed the gas and the brake pedals for a grand total of over a week as I resumed traveling again — while refusing to step back on a plane for another two years.
They led me through a self-guided tour of the City of Brotherly Love mere days after the South Street shooting, and pedaled a swan-shaped boat outside the Independence Maritime Museum.
They were drug along as I escaped a heatwave in Washington, D.C., before which they had disappeared into the light of an interactive art display, visited the Lincoln Memorial and experienced nearly everything the Smithsonian had to offer.
They’ve tread the pavement of Nashville on multiple occasions. Walked the halls of the Ritz-Carlton before and after I spoke at an event held in the same ballroom where Bob Saget gave his final performance.
During the summer of 2023, their pink band happenstancely made them chic as we caught the Barbie movie at the drive-in.
They’ve slow-danced in a field in Western Pennsylvania to the music of fireflies and starlight.
These shoes have kissed the white sands along the Gulf of Mexico, and been immersed in the mighty power of the Pacific Ocean.
They’ve been through the washer a time or two, and felt the crinkle of newspaper on their insides as they laid out in the sun to dry.
They’ve celebrated on Prince’s Wharf as one of the first in the world to ring in the New Year. They circled the Auckland Zoo side-by-side with a writer I’ve long admired.
These shoes have ascended into the treetops of the majestic redwoods of Rotorua. They’ve ambled through the Shire, and climbed the smooth ruins of the Arai-te-uru waka.
They have stood in rooms that Princess Diana’s ex-husband is forbidden from entering.
They’ve embarked on a 6-mile hike to see glow worms with a bunch of twenty-year-olds, during which they surely experienced my shock. In these shoes, I never led the pack, but I never fell to the back of it, either. Despite my age.
They have held me through awe-filled experiences as I watched auroras and total solar eclipses.
They have powered stationary bikes, propelled ergs and met the cool metal of leg press machines.
Over the past year and half, I have worn my 2022-tennies almost exclusively. They’ve ventured through a reentry into the halls of scholarship, and been introduced to the tiled laboratories of very-impressive scientists.
The end of an era
It wasn’t until recently that they started to show signs of wear that even my all-too-frugal self could no longer ignore. If these are the shoes I don everywhere, it’s starting to get beyond the point where a good wash is going to make me presentable.
This holiday season, a family member gave me the budget to go out and buy a new pair. I’m grateful for the generosity, as it will allow me to invest in a new, quality pair that will hopefully last just as long.
But even for quality sneakers, nearly four years is a long run — especially when you wear them as consistently as I have.
I don’t have the original receipt, and I’m not curious enough to dive into old bank records. So while I can’t report exactly what I spent on them, it was probably somewhere between $80 and $120. I didn’t get them at Walmart, but it’s not in my nature to blow more than that upper limit on even a nice pair of shoes.
That pre-pandemic pair that had a hole worn in them were Nikes, and I don’t think they lasted quite as long. Plus, for a good portion of the Nikes’ life I was Inside, as so many of us were back then.
Lucking into a quality investment
New Balances are great, but this isn’t an advertorial. I don’t think the nearly-four-year, rough-and-tumble lifespan is “normal” even for the brand’s quality.
Instead, I think I got lucky.
Lucky that I had the income to invest in a little more quality and not buy at Walmart at that particular point in my life.
Lucky that they lasted through everything they did.
Lucky that even though now they’re a bit too worn down to wear on the daily, they’re still functional. Functional enough that I’ll be able to save them for muddy adventures and other experiences I don’t want to expose the New Pair to as I endeavor to make those last, as well.
Luck in personal economies
My shoes are a microcosm of the concept of luck in our personal finances. Sometimes, we make smart decisions with our money, investing in quality or working hard and smart in such a way that we pull in an enviable income. It makes us feel like we’re worthy of patting ourselves on the back.
The thing is, more often than not, we do those things while our paths also intersect with a healthy dose of luck.
Because one can just as easily do all those things and still end up with the short end of the stick.
Further, you can start out from a place where even an $80 investment in shoes is out-of-reach. It’s like rolling a six-sided die instead of one with twelve sides. You’re just not capable of rolling a ’12’ under those circumstances. Or even a ‘7.’
As the era of the long-lived New Balances enters its sunset, I find myself grateful for the areas in my life where that luck has shown up. I also find myself ever mindful that my next chapter isn’t guaranteed to be as fortunate.
To differing extents, we’re all subject to the luck of the draw. Let’s practice kindness and community as we bear it in mind.