Returning My Future to Buffalo Exchange

And the ignorant belief that six inch, shiny stiletto heels would one day become a wardrobe staple

I’m in the middle of spring cleaning. Yes, I know it’s June, but I’ve been busy. And besides, spring cleaning is a mentality, is it not? I’ve been digging through my bedrooms – the one I pay rent for, the one I grew up in — rummaging through the closets to fill up a sack that I’ll eventually drag to Goodwill.

It’s old t-shirts, too-small sweaters, pants that can’t slide up the leg, and jackets from bold fashion days ill-advised. And at the top of this pile, the queen of the unloved items, stands a pair of stiletto heels, six inches tall, black, shiny, and made by Michael Kors. They’re regal and stunning but never worn.

I met these shoes, “The Girls” we’ll call them, at the Buffalo Exchange thrift store on 14th street where I bought them for $30 in high school. It was a Saturday in spring, and the first day I was allowed to go downtown alone. The afternoon felt monumental. Here I was, exploring the lower half of an island I’d lived on all my life. It felt like the beginning of my future. And so, I bought some shoes to fit.

Never mind that they were a half size too big for my fully grown feet. Never mind that they were four inches taller than any shoe I’d worn before. Never mind that they were shiny when I only wore matte. They were the shoes of tomorrow, not today. Tomorrow, when I’d stride into trendy SoHo bars wearing shiny stilettos and order vodka martinis dry.

This memory ends with me at the check-out, placing The Girls on the table, handing the cashier a debit card, and imploring her to charge “credit not debit” because I thought if she did that, my parents would cover the bill in their credit statement. A later memory involves said card getting declined because obviously, that’s not how debit cards work.

And that was the last time I held them. They stood, for a while, on the shoe rack in my childhood closet before getting demoted to a random shelf. And every time I moved, they stayed behind. But here they are, freed, propped up, alert, ready to be returned to Buffalo Exchange to try their hand at another owner. But I still don’t want to give them up.

The Girls have come to represent a flash in time – an endearing memory of myself imagining my future self. And now I have become this future self, but she isn’t the person I imagined her to be.

Even as a teenager, I believed so wholeheartedly in my ability to rapidly and radically change. Transformation seemed so easy and at times, inevitable. As a kid, I’d play with a blonde, blue-eyed Barbie and figured I'd look like her as an adult. I’d read a storybook about Gertrude Ederle and determine that at some point, I too would swim the English Channel. I would be beautiful, brave, and smart, and all exceptionally so. A compilation of all my favorite famous women, minus any problematic character arcs. Of course, I’d be.

But I wasn’t. I don’t look like Barbie or swim like Gertrude Ederle. And I still can’t fit into those shoes. My feet never grew to fill them.

I am far more similar to the teenager in Buffalo Exchange than I am to my bold aspirations for her. And it's fine. I like myself how I am — still preferring ginger ale to alcohol and choosing outfits based on comfort. But I do miss that alternative reality, even if, for so many reasons, it won’t and shouldn’t come true.

It is time for The Girls to return to Buffalo Exchange. I am not meant for them. But what if I could be?