Bekir Coşkun: Tight shoes.....

There were no ready-made shoe stores in the city at that time. So at the one and only shoemaker's shop, the shoemaker had me put my bare foot down on some cardboard, and, telling me to press down hard, took the pencil he was chewing on to trace around my foot on that cardboard.
 
That tracing was how he got my shoe size.
 
For days after that, I imagined how my shoes would look. According to what my father said, they would be black and with laces.

Every time the doorbell rang, I would run to open it, hoping it was my new shoes being delivered.
 
The shoes finally came, one day before bayram; they were as my father had said, black with laces.
 
But that day, I wasn't allowed to put on my shoes yet. And on the night before bayram, I carefully put my new shoes under my bed. Every now and then, I got out of bed to check on the shoes, taking them out of their box, putting them back in again. Who knows just how many times I stroked their shiny, rounded ends that night.

I could not get to sleep.
 
When the household awoke in the morning, I was there, sitting in the chair in my room, holding my boxed shoes on my lap. My father put my shoes on me. But they did not really fit-they were tight, and they hurt. But I did not tell my father.  When he asked "Do they squeeze you?" I answered "No." I knew that if I told him the truth, my shoes would have to go back to the shoemaker's shop, and that it was unlikely that I would be able to others ones very soon.
 
So that bayram morning, I walked in pain. Fairly soon, the pain became almost unbearable. I clenched my teeth. I limped. To those who asked me what was wrong, I said I had bumped my knee on something. But I told no one that my shoes were tight.
 
The truth is though, life is really a walk in tight shoes. Some people have not enough pay, others do jobs they don't like.

Sometimes a place can be like tight shoes for us, and sometimes our friends and relations can turn into a tight fit. Sometimes it's even wealth, and other times the pillow you rest your head on.....these can all make pain for you.

You walk along, limping.
 
Anyway, in the end, I have learned that life is really the art of learning how to walk in tight shoes.