The search is over....you were with me all along.

I am being stalked by a pair of red Brooks running shoes. I love my Brooks Adrenaline GTS 8s in a size 9.5. LOVE THEM. I buy them over and over in the only color ever offered in my local running stores – white/blue/silver. I did a search a while back thinking I would buy my shoes online and maybe get a better deal. I came across these same shoes in red, also know as white/garnet/silver. At the time, the site I was on didn’t have my size. I’ve thought about these shoes many times during the last few months. I look at my sorry old blue ones and think of the shiny new red ones that could be mine if I was lucky enough. Well, yesterday I went online looking for shoes – my current ones are pretty beaten up – I did a search for the Brooks Adrenaline GTS in garnet. I found many sites that offered them and even found them in my size. I was shocked to see that the garnet color costs $30 more than the blue.

Many months ago, money was growing on trees in our house. Lately, this is not the case. I am shopping at Winco right now – which is a story for another day – but I can tell you it means that money is tight. So, the idea of spending $90 on the red version, versus $60 on the blue version – of the same shoe – doesn’t make much financial sense. Oh, but my heart yearns for the red shoes. Wouldn’t I run faster and happier in these shoes? Just knowing that their redness was on my feet would surely propel me to running nirvana….right? These are the thoughts I wrestled with all day long yesterday. I knew the right thing to do would be to buy the blue shoes – because I do love them, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the red ones.

I even had a co-worker and friend on the case – she tried hard to find the red shoes at the same price as the blue – she did a few times, but never in my size. We spent the day discussing which would be a better option…chopping off toes to make a size 7.5 fit or stuffing tissues in the shoes to make a size 10 fit. We finally gave up and I made the right decision…well, the right financial decision – not the right decision for my soul. I bought the blue shoes for the cheapest price I could find with free shipping. Sigh.

I had finally accepted my fate and the idea that I would need to survive without the red shoes. I had even forgotten about my one true love, until….

Late in the day I was looking at the weather forecast on OregonLive.com and on the right hand side of the screen I saw an ad for shoes.com – 10% - with a little blurb that said, “check out our selection of brooks” and there was a picture of the red shoes. Shoes.com can kiss my ass because I looked at their site earlier and they didn’t have the red shoes in my size, so don’t tempt me with 10% off something that doesn’t exist.

I went home and told Trevor about my red shoes and he said I only wanted them because they were more expensive. Sigh. He just doesn’t understand me. I tried to explain the allure of these shoes and their beauty, but he wasn’t getting it.

This morning, I had again forgotten about the loves of my life…that pair of running joy. I was looking at something else online on a different website, because I can’t get all my news from OregonLive.com and what pops up on the right hand side of that screen….my shoes….my beautiful shoes….another website tempting me…another website that didn’t have them in my size. But that little picture of the lone red shoe was blowing Valentine’s kisses at me, wanting me to love it, wanting to love my right back.




At about the same time, I saw a message pop up on my email that said, "your order had shipped"...my blue shoes are on their way to me and I know that I owe it to them to give them the same love I would give these red shoes. So until things change around my house, I will be wearing the poor people's version of the Brooks Adrenaline GTS and trying to find running nirvana anyway. When I open the box I will say the words of Journey..."now at last I hold you, now all is said is done, the search has come full circle, our destinies one...."