Throughout my life, I have always had personal battles with shoes. Eventually I have adapted myself to understand that wearing shoes that meet my needs are best to properly manage myself as I navigate into the world as an independent autistic person.

As many children grow up, parents teach their young how to put on and eventually tie their shoes. For me growing up, there was so much more going on in my life that that and many other life skills for that time became secondary to navigate a challenging daily life. Eventually the time came when I went on a field trip in the third grade where we went bowling at the local bowling alley and we needed to change into bowling shoes that I could not tie. My teacher saw this and took the initiative to call my mother and ask her if she would buy the shoes, could she, as the teacher teach me, to which my mother agreed .

I still remember those days in that classroom when all free time (including lunch period) was used to teach me the skill of shoe tying. I vehemently recall this time when another student asked me for my lunch number so they could retrieve my lunch from the cafeteria, I remember screaming out 8…0…4, some things just stick with me and that was one of them.

Eventually, I caught on enough to get by, but as I got older and gained weight I became more careless about it to the point where it was becoming more of a bother to the point where it and other things like not pulling out the heel for a proper fit became the attention of those that loved and cared for me. As painful as it could be sometimes, it was something that I just dealt with until I realized that I had to give in to things to ease the pressure of others and just feel free of the constant criticism that I was experiencing.

So, in the past few years, I have begun to accept the fact that it was perfectly acceptable to wear shoes without shoelaces, often what my family would call “slip Ons.” I noticed that others with similar challenges to me did the same thing and it was perfectly acceptable to do so. There was no social responsibility or rule that I was breaking in this process. However, I would still not notice the discomfort that I was experiencing as I was not paying attention to how I was putting them on along with wearing them out in the process to the point that even if I did make them comfortable, they were still uncomfortable to a degree.

A few weeks ago I realized that I needed to buy new shoes and took the initiative to just go to the shoe department during my trip to the supercenter and buy a pair that met my needs and they are much more comfortable for me to the point that I am proud of myself that I realized that I needed a pair that one from the supercenter would do just fine for me. It is what works for me and really cares about the shoes you wear. I certainly don’t.