Shit, I think I'm a sneaker head again.

This Friday night, I'm going to be doing something I haven't done in about 8 years. I'm going to buy expensive, hyped up sneakers. Adidas Sobakov, black/white/gum, to be exact. And while I'm hitting refresh over and over at midnight on Friday (coolest way to spend a Friday night, I know), I'll be stuck thinking about how different things were the last time I did this. I'll also be nervous about the can of worms I'm opening up.

Back in high school, I used to collect shoes. And what I mean by that is, my mom paid for all of my shoes. I was in love with Jordan's (even though I didn't like basketball), Nike SB's (even though I couldn't even ollie), and Air Max's (running wasn't my strong suit back then). I would camp outside of malls with people that deserved the shoes much more than I did. I'd go to Nike outlet stores and rifle through boxes and piles of crap shoes in order to find one great pair. I
'd scour eBay for hours to find used grails that I needed to have. At my absolute worst, I had 51 pairs. FIFTY ONE.

Now a lot of follow up questions come to mind, and I'll answer them for you:
-Yes, my mommy bought them for me.
-No, I was NOT cool.
-Yes, I did think I was black.
-Yes, I did take pictures of my feet every day and post them on forums #todayskicks.
-Yes, there was a time where I dabbled in rap. It wasn't pretty.
-No, I will not send you the rap songs.

Beyond the feeling of shame from writing out those few bullet points, there's a lot to unpack here.

One concern I have is financial ability to buy these on my own. I used to have a barrier to these shoes. My mother, bless her heart, would buy me most of what I wanted, in exchange for chores around the house or what have you. Sometimes, she'd say no. I'd have over 100 pairs if it weren't for her. Now I'm the one with the credit card. I was cruising a website earlier today and I could have easily dropped $5K if there weren't a blonde girl looking over my shoulder at my screen. This could get dangerous, fast.

The thing that stands out the most to me, however, is the difference in my general style then and now. Baggy jeans, sized up LRG tees, flat-billed snap back or fitted caps, and cubic zirconium earrings, while gaudy in my opinion, fit the sneaker culture the best. Most likely because of its connection to hip-hop culture, sneaker culture is tied to the flashy end of the style spectrum. That's not me anymore. I'm a blank t-shirt, Old Navy/Gap wearing, white guy. I keep it simple, but I still like to think I'm dressing well. That being said, Converse Chuck Taylor's and Vans slip-on's are a far departure from the Yeezy-meets-indoor-soccer-shoes Adidas Sobakov's I'll be picking up. This is made mostly apparent to me when I open up what I have left of the shoe collection, and see maybe one pair that aren't some crazy bulky thing with loud colors. I'll be struggling to work these bad boys into my normal wardrobe, but what if it doesn't work? Do I give up the shoes pipe dream, or do I start to change my style to fit back into the streetwear sneaker culture? Only time will tell.