Last week I was walking down a cute little street near Lake Merritt in Oakland and saw this cute little vintage store. Something about it told me to go in and since I had a few extra minutes, I decided to oblige. Of course, the first thing my eye gravitated to was the cowboy boot selection. And there among all the not-quite-right cowboy boots were the most perfect boots I had ever seen.

Perfectly worn-in Golden Goose motorcycle boots with a barely-visible leather-tooled eagle on the front, cowboy boot stitching on the square toe, and one solitary tassel on the side.

Holy shit. These couldn’t be more me. I thought. And so I turned them over to check the size and price. 7.5 (a little big) and out of my price range…but only barely.

And so I tried them on. Dammit. Too big. But only barely. So I kept walking around, kept staring at them in the mirror. Tried different mirrors. Tried different pants. And came to the conclusion that barely too big, is still too big and if I was going to spend that much on a pair of boots, I wanted them to fit right. Ok. Done.

And so I left the store.
But couldn’t stop thinking about those damn boots. And so I called in reinforcement. The next day, I brought my best friend. And an extra pair of socks.

Again…walked around, tried different mirrors. Looked sideways. Looked frontways. Imagined them with a skirt. “They don’t make me look like I have clown feet, do they?” I asked the best friend. No. She said. And you should just get them. You can put an insert in them and it’ll be fine.

Ok. I thought. Well…I’ll think about it one more day and if I still want them tomorrow, I’ll come get them. And so we leave the store. And within three hours I decided. They were MINE. It’s just money. Who cares if they’re too big. They’re so awesome that it won’t matter. They’re the best boot ever and it’ll be perfect. Yeah. Good. Phew. Decided.

The rest of the night, I imagined myself in those boots. Put together perfect outfits in my head. Saw them in pictures. Imagined getting stopped on the street asking me where I got them. Imagined joining the Golden Goose Boot Ambassador program with the secret handshake and a knowing head-nod when you see a fellow member. My whole life was planned out, from those boots forward.

So the next day, I get my perfect little boot outfit on, deciding that I’ll buy the boots and walk out of the store wearing them, and when I get to the store, there is a hole where those boots were the day before. My heart drops.

Are you kidding me?

I look at the two other places where there are boots and no Golden Geese anywhere. In a panic, I bombard the salesgirl with questions. Did they sell? Are they in the back? Are you sure? Can you check the backlog? Can you call the customer? Where you here yesterday?

I was a crazy person. And even said…”you don’t understand. Those are MY boots!”

And as she was checking the backlog…there it was. The receipt. The boots had sold. Gone forever. The lone ranger Golden Goose motorcycle boot of my dreams had vanished. Just like that.

And I was pissed. And sad. And disappointed. And mad at myself. And wondered what, on Earth, life-lesson this could possibly have in it. I mean, life, as it seemed…was over.

And as I was thinking about this, a flash of past events flashed in my mind.

It’s so easy for us all to put things off. Things we want. Things we know we love, things we know need to happen, trips we’ve been meaning to take, that phone call to a long lost friend, or a break-up that has been meaning to happen. “One more day,” we say. Or “I’m going to wait until I’m sure.” But the thing is, is that we’ll never be sure. And we don’t always have one more day. Life is to be lived, now. Fulfilling and sparked. Now. Not later. We don’t need one more day to think about buying the plane ticket (or the boots, per se). We just need to take the leap and spend the money. Because if too much time passes, we forget. We get scared. We talk ourselves out of it. The plane ticket goes up. And the boots get bought. And then we’re left wondering what it would be like if we had gone on the trip, bought the boots, called the friend. We are all so afraid of making mistakes that we don’t take the risks. And the risk in that is we can be left pissed, and sad, and disappointed, and mad at ourselves.

Luckily, for me, these were just boots. And once I got a grip on reality, I realized that I would, in fact, survive this situation. And I got online, and found another dope pair of motorcycle boots. Getting back on the horse, as they say. The lemonade here is that they’re awesome, they were cheaper, and they fit like a glove. It’s never too late to have what you want.

What have you been putting off lately? What are your “motorcycle boots?” What are some things you’ve been wanting that you’ve been afraid to go for? Leave a comment on the blog and tell me alllll about it.