I bought my son a pair of white tennis shoes last week.

Are they still considered tennis shoes if he doesn’t play tennis? Does anyone use the term “sneakers” these day or would they be classified as “athletic” shoes? What if they aren’t used for athletics? Gym shoes? He doesn’t take gym classes at Wayne State. And they certainly aren’t dress shoes, though he will probably wear them with about everything but his suits.

In any case, I bought him a pair of slip-on sneakers … let’s just go with that. He liked the fact that they didn’t have to be untied and tied — that’s a deal maker in shoes, I guess. They also resembled his favorite pair, the ones that needed to be eliminated from the tribe since they were falling apart. The new shoes offered good support, they were sleek, and they fit great.

And … they were white.

My son likes white shoes. He’s not drawn to designers or brand names, though these Mark Nason’s came with a pretty price tag. But so do my shoes. And I have a lot more than he does. He just wanted a nice pair of slip-on sneakers to wear.

My objection was … they were white. But, they fit great. And, I had coupons to apply! So, we left DSW with The White Shoes. He was thrilled. We came home. He put them on and walked out the door.

When he returned a few hours later, his arrival was muted. He came into the kitchen carrying the right shoe to reveal … oh, you know … the smudge of dirt.

Somehow when he stepped out of the house, the bottom of one shoe brushed the side of the other shoe and wham! He didn’t even know where the dirt came from. He’d tried to be so careful. But, there it was. He was pretty bummed out.

I didn’t resort to the motherly fall-backs, The “well, if you’d just scotch guarded them before you left ….” I didn’t say, “well if you’d picked out shoes that weren’t white, the smudge wouldn’t be so evident.” I didn’t say anything. I recognized the devastation and resolved to Handle the problem in my own Olivia Pope style. I took the shoe, pulled out the Oxy Clean, and went to work.

Unfortunately, the smudge was stronger than my spray Oxy Clean.

My husband used shoe cleaner. We scrubbed with soap. Still the smudge remained.

So, I decided to soak it. That’s what you do to remove stubborn stains! A few hours in the Oxy Clean and that stain would be nothin’ but a memory.

Imagine my shock when I discovered that my brilliant stain removal strategy only made the situation worse. Now the leather had bled onto the white netting, adding a brownish tinge to the white shoe. And the damn smudge was still there too!

It beat me. That stain was tougher than all my Type A cleaning products. And, I felt terrible. Not only did I NOT help remove the stain but I only made the damage worse with my efforts to erase it from the canvas. All I could do was apologize to my son and accept defeat.

Dirt happens, you know. Messes and mistakes happen. And I’m not just talking about walking outside wearing white shoes. Life is full of smudges. At least mine is … I haven’t lived a stain-free life. I’m kinda like Jarod’s shoe.

This week I learned that you can’t erase the smudge once it’s on the shoe. Oh you can scotch guard it, to protect it. But, dirt will find a way. It just does. It will leave its mark. It will change the way the shoe looks on the outside … but it won’t change the shoe’s ability to do what it was made to do.

We can’t erase the impact of dirt or smudges — or our own not so good decisions or the mistakes we’ve made in our lives. But these smudges don’t have to affect our ability to do what we were made to do unless we allow them to. We may think they do. We may hide, deny, avoid or ignore smudges we’ve made. We may deny they’ve affected us — or that they may have affected someone else. But, there’s a mark somewhere.

But, it doesn’t have to stop us.

I’ve made mistakes — made choices and decisions that may not have always been the best or even the right ones. And they affected me … still affect me in some cases. I can’t erase and pretend they didn’t happen or delete them from my memory. They are part of me. Messy moments, wrong turns, tangled paths, mistakes, failures, and smudges all play a part in shaping me into the woman I am today. Oxy Clean won’t make them disappear from the fabric of my life. They are there. And, I know they are there.

Know what? I wouldn’t change that anyway. The dirt I’ve encountered in my life has taught me things. And, my smudges make me unique and who I am today. I’m good with that.

I don’t allow them to hold me back. I won’t give a smudge that power. I dust myself off, accept who I am and do the next right thing (Yes, Disney fans, I went there).

Jarod’s shoes will never be perfect again. But, those White Shoes reminded me that my life is a canvas too and it’s okay that it’s not perfectly white. My canvas has some smudges, some wear and tear, tracks of tears and some blotches too. I find beauty in embracing my imperfections, accepting the smudges that have affected my canvas.

The next time your kid wants a pair of white shoes, just know they won’t be white after they leave the store. Come to terms with it.

And if they ask you to clean off some dirt from those once perfect sneakers, for heaven’s sake, just step away from the Oxy.

                                                                                                                                — Jenni