To-die-for pink sandals

I had a strange moment today. I desperately need a new pair of sandals so I, being the shoe-a-holic that I am, started searching the internet far and wide for a really cute pair. I was going to go to Target, but that's such a hit-or-miss store when it comes to shoes so I changed my mind. I looked at Payless and Zappos because cheap is the way to go for me these days! I found a pair of T-strap ones that look similar to ones I've been dying for, but I didn't want to wait the 10 - 14 days for shipping. Instant gratification is the name of the game when it comes to shoes. So, since the nearest Payless is only about 5 minutes from my house, I decided I'd just go there and look around, even though I knew full well that they only have 2 out of 10 things that they list on the internet in the store. Okay - here's the point of my story. My main question to the owner of the Payless store near my house is this: why do you put the teeny tiny cute pink little girl's shoes on the back wall, sectioned off into a little space only visible by someone walking straight down the aisle that houses the size nine shoes? It was torturous. I ignored them at first, as I usually do, but it was like a car accident; eventually I went over and looked at them. It resulted in me buying these:

even though I had absolutely no intentions to send them to her. I know I can't. I can't possibly send her everything I see that makes me think of her, or that I think would look adorable on her (because I think everything would). So...yes, I really bought them. They are sitting on my bed beside me right now, yet another thing that I will put in her keepsake box, even though they were never 'hers.' Everything in my keepsake box is something that was hers or something that directly has to do with her - her hospital bracelets, locks of her hair, her birth certificate, etc. This pair of shoes...this is entirely something different. I keep wondering what made me do it. I can see someone thinking it's a little twisted to buy shoes for a child that is no longer even "mine." The rational side of me knows that I cannot justify it in any way, but I also know that I don't need to justify it to anyone. I snuck them in my house because, although I know my mother would cry if she saw them, I also know she would say "what are you going to do with those?! Why would you waste your money?" Well, I didn't waste it. I fell in love with them, I wanted them, let me have my few minutes of happiness over these adorable little shoes that would be on my daughter at this very moment if she were here with me right now.
Here's the weird part that I was leading up to. My low-gas light came on as I was driving home, so I went to go get gas so I wouldn't have to on my way to work at seven in the morning. I had the little shoe box on the passenger seat beside me, and after the guy handed me back my credit card, I turned to the side to put it back in my wallet. Immediately I noticed the wallet sized photo of my daughter in my wallet, staring at me, and out of the corner of my eye I saw the shoe box and a pink shirt rolled up into a ball in my backseat, rolled up so tight that it appeared to be a lot smaller in size than it really was. It was my shirt, but it was folded in a way that it could have been a little kid's shirt. Anyways, for that split second I thought, "this looks like the car of a mom." Minus the ever-absent car seat, that is. I don't know why I found it so noteworthy, it just struck me all of a sudden and the thought has stayed with me ever since. Granted, it was only an hour ago, but still. It was like I drifted into fantasy land for a minute, but before I even realized where I was I was brought back to reality. Maybe one day, it will be my reality. Who knows? I always said I never wanted kids, and then it shifted to me saying I don't want any more kids, Arianna was and always will be enough, and I would hate to have another and make her wonder why I chose adoption for her and kept my other child. But lately I've been thinking of how special it felt to feel her moving in my tummy, and how breathtaking it was to actually hold her for the first time.

I miss that. I miss that exact moment in time that was captured in that photo...looking at it makes it almost seem tangible again. Makes her seem tangible again. She's not; but she will be one day.
And even though I was shocked, terrified, and essentially alone (even with my parents and her birth father by my side), it was still the most amazing, loving experience I've ever been through. I can't imagine how special it must feel to PLAN to make a baby with someone you truly truly love. Yes I did love her father, but I mean love with a commitment. I want to be anxious to take a pregnancy test in an excited, ecstatic way, not anxious in a bad way. Time will tell what I am meant to do in this world, that I know for sure. If you had told me two years ago that I would be a first mother, a mother who chose adoption for her child, I would never have believed it. Never in a million years. But here I am, living with my heart walking without me in the form of a beautiful little girl, and I'm still alive :)