Sole Survivor

As we packed up our youngest for her first year at college my clipboard ranneth over.  To do lists, packing lists, shopping lists. Color coded sticky notes on piles of clothes. Who wouldn’t be in heaven.  Despite the fact that empty nesting was knocking on my door (and as you know I abhor it) I was having fun getting Ellie organized and ready for Boston. All went well until we couldn’t find one of her running shoes. We were running short on packing days (no pun intended) so we purchased another pair and moved on.

Whit was adamant that the other shoe was somewhere in the house. Under her bed, in a bag, under the pile of clothes in her closet? Maybe the trunk of her car? If you know Ellie, all of those places were and may still be completely plausible. He put the shoe on the stairs and stated that it wasn’t moving until the other shoe was found. It had to be somewhere! There were a few attempts to find it but then Ellie left for school and the shoe stayed on the stairs. She came home for Thanksgiving and it was still there. When we were decorating our Tree of Chaos, it became the tree topper. And when we took the tree down, it went back on the stairs. This time, they became a paperweight for the Love Notes that had been piling up. 

2 ½ years later Ellie is in her last semester of junior year and the shoe is still there. This past holiday season we added lights to the shoe so it would twinkle at the top of the Tree of Chaos. But, it went back on the stairs after the holidays. Much like the notes, it is part of our family story and it stays right where it is.  Maybe we will give her the shoe and notes for graduation or as a wedding present.