Nine days before I turned 18 years old, I got you, on an evening when the air was cold and the city lights were beautiful and I told a man I would spend the rest of my life finding ways to love him.

But I wanted you for years before that.

You were the first: the first piece of clothing that my teenage self identified with and also had any hope of wearing as a Mennonite, the first piece of clothing that I wanted for a long time before I got it, the first that I spent a lot of money on. Actually, I think you only cost like $60, but for me at that time that felt like a lot and probably only the high of getting engaged could have made that decision as easy as it was. Because I did buy you, with my own money, and I never regretted it.

I adored you, my Converse. I wore you for nine years – through several versions of Mennonite, and beyond. You were one of the few pieces of clothing that survived that extreme wardrobe change, because you were one of the few pieces that I had truly chosen, one of the few who reminded me of who I had both found myself and chosen to be.

You were a classic version of the Chuck Taylor All-Stars – simple black and white, Oxford-style. At one point I put in bright pink laces, and I considered doing a thing where I would switch out different colored laces for different outfits, but in the end, I mostly just left you and liked you best as your standard black-and-white selves. 

Today, you’re not really black or white anymore. You’re faded and stained and battered. I don’t hate the worn-Converse aesthetic but I still seldom wear you, because even if I don’t hate it, it’s not really my style. The discolored black of the canvas doesn’t look well with actual black clothing – and I wear a lot of black clothing. But as soon as I realized that I could no longer wear you regularly, I was sad and I wanted new Converse, because some outfits are simply better with Converse.

But I didn’t buy new Converse. More than a year went by after the first time that I said, “I need new Converse,” and I continued to not buy myself any. There was no logical reason not to. I had the money in my budget. I knew what size I wore. I knew I wanted black and white ones again. I could easily have ordered them from the comfort of my own house – or from anywhere, because phone. 

And yet I didn’t.

I didn’t understand why not until I commented on it to one of my sisters and she asked if I have a sentimental attachment to you, and I realized that I probably do.

I thought this was interesting, because another thing about me is that I honestly get more joy from throwing out clothes than I do from buying them. I like new clothes. It’s just that getting rid of things feels so freeing. But here’s another way you, my Converse, are the first: you’re the first piece of clothing that I don’t want to get rid of, even though you’re definitely worn out enough to justify the trash and too worn out to wear for anything more formal than backyard hangouts with my daughter. Exactly the sort of thing that would normally be gone from my closet the minute I realized I’m no longer wearing it for ordinary life.

On the day I turned 27 years old, one of my favorite friends sent me $200 for, she said, “all the Converse you want.” (You can see why she’s my favorite. It’s because she gives me money.) 

And, because she had done that, I sat in my car for a long time that day after I got home from work, and I opened the Converse website and I did the custom design thing and I had much fun creating shoes that 98% of people will probably never know were custom designed because at a glance they’re just black and white Converse high-tops with platform soles. But that’s me. Occasionally I do like letting my weird shine bright, but more often I will choose classic with a subtle twist to make it my own.

They finally arrived at my house the other day, and they’re beautiful to my eyes, crisply black and white, and I’m savoring the excitement of wearing them for the first time – which I still haven’t done because Texas is doing its version of winter, which means muddy, and I don’t want to defile them quite yet.

But right now they’re sitting in their box next to my closet, and you are still on the shelf where you’ve lived for years. I still don’t want to toss you. I don’t know what to do with you. 

Because you were the first.