Those Soles Didn’t Fall Off Because I Was Broken!

Both soles of my boots fell away at exactly the same time.

Yes. Both of them.

I had been wearing them all day. There had been no warning. No flapping. No suspicious creaking. Nothing to suggest that my boots were about to spontaneously disintegrate. And yet, the moment I walked through my friend Emma’s front door, they gave up. What the fuck?! I laughed so much I almost spilled over my Tena Lady and tripped up the stairs.

But looking back, I don't think it was random at all.

I had just spent a very strange and unexpectedly healing weekend in my home town. I had travelled back to Dorset and met up with a few old friends. One of them was an old boyfriend I had known since I was four years old. It was a last-minute invitation, and after recently uncovering another layer of shadow work, it felt like the perfect opportunity to let something out of the shackled box of moths and finally set it free.

A few days earlier, I had received what can only be described as a back-handed invitation from my mother: “Just letting you know, we are having a SURPRISE party for Nan’s 90th. I am sure she would like 'you and yours' to be there.”

Me being her daughter, “Mine” being her grandchildren. I didn't respond, I still haven't. For eighteen years, I have been ostracised from my maternal family.

In those eighteen years I had three more children, moved away and become isolated, endured and eventually escaped an abusive marriage, represented myself in court fighting for custody of my children after my ex had threatened my life several times, survived Covid intact, gained two degrees and built a couple of businesses. All without family support.

Not even when I drove at high speed through the night from Liverpool to Dorset with all five of my children in the car, highly traumatised by what my ex had just done (that's another story). I had gone to my family for help to get me away from the abuse. They stood around shrugging their shoulders and looking at each other like the John Travolta character in Pulp Fiction.

Anyway.

When I received that invitation, my first thought was: if there is one person I'd walk through those doors with, it's him (a certain old boyfriend who I grew up with from age 4). And then, two days later, I received a Faceache message from him in response to something I had posted a week earlier. My post had asked: What are you still carrying that may never have been yours to hold? His private message simply said: 'You'.

Okay. That was unexpected. But the timing was perfect. Not because I wanted to reignite the flames of an old relationship, but because he was one of the very few people who had known me forever, seen me for who I was, and accepted me anyway.

We had quite a history, and there was something that had happened between us that needed healing, for both of us.

My Nan, the very woman whose 90th birthday I had just been invited to, had forced me to have an abortion when I was carrying his baby, I had no say. My family had a reputation to uphold, and I had always seemed to be a huge stain on that reputation simply for existing.

We met up on the shore where we had played as children, for two hours we talked, non-stop, in glorious sunshine, we somehow became those two kids again messing around in boats, and somewhere between the laughter, the memories and the tears, we healed that part of our lives. We said goodbye to the baby we never got to hold.

He told me he would happily come to the party with me if I wanted him to, but I knew there and then that I wouldn't be going, something had shifted. I had laid that aching part of my heart to rest, and I had absolutely no desire to stir it back up by walking into a room full of people who had tolerated me, but had never truly loved or accepted me. We said our goodbyes with lighter hearts, and I went to meet my next friend, Emma.

Emma is one of the most amazing people I know. She has also had a life full of challenges, and she has carried them with courage, tenacity, understanding and a very definite “Come on if you think you're hard enough!” attitude. I fucking love her spirit. Whenever I visit Emma, I am immediately transported back to my younger self. I become giddy, giggly...free! All my troubles seem to disappear for a while, and I don't have to perform, explain or defend myself. I can simply be me.

And then my boots fell apart. Both soles. At exactly the same time.

Once I'd got home I had to Google the spiritual meaning because, seriously, what were the chances?

According to Google (yeah I know!):

“The spiritual meaning of both soles of your shoes falling off at the same time is a powerful sign that your current path, foundation or belief system is ending because it no longer supports your growth.”

Shedding the past, outgrowing an old version of yourself, the old walk is over.

Apparently, the shoes that carried me through childhood armour, survival mechanisms and old pain had completed their service, and do you know what? That felt about right, because when Google asked me what was happening in my life when it happened, I answered:

“I visited my home town and slayed a couple of dragons.”

And perhaps that is exactly what I had done, I had gone back to the place where some of my deepest wounds began, I had faced someone connected to one of them, I had grieved something I had been carrying for decades, I had remembered who I was before all the pain, and I had chosen not to walk back into the old family dynamic.

Then my boots fell apart.

I don't think I need to get them fixed. I'm going to buy a new pair, and I'm buying them with intention because I am stepping into a new chapter. With both feet facing forward (Thank you Carole Maureen Friesen).

I don't owe any more of my energy to people who didn't care for me when I was a child, or when I was a vulnerable adult. No sirree. I have spent enough of my life walking in survival mode. Those boots served me well, they got me here.

But they don't belong where I'm going next.

I will not be walking into my next chapter wearing shoes that belonged to the last one.