Monday 9 March 2015

Day 20: Socks


Socks are funny things.
I know people who point-blank refuse to wear matching socks, and one person who will colour co-ordinate his entire outfit right down to them.
Since leaving University I now pair my socks differently to how I used to when living at home, to the way that my parents taught me.
I also now find myself in possession of socks that were not originally mine. Curious remnants of visiting guests, of fleeting friendships, and entire relationships.
Like Dobby the house-elf I've taken these tokens of past lives on to a whole new kind of freedom. I've literally walked away in these memories.
During a break-up or parting of ways you re-distribute larger items, but socks? When they turn up at the bottom of a washing basket 6 months down the line there's precious little point in returning them. Especially the ones with holes in. But what then? Socks are so mundane, so routine an item, that it feels strange to simply dispose of them, but what of this odd little physical reminder of your past that resurfaces every once in a while, or perhaps more regularly, depending on the size of your sock collection?
It's at this point I begin to consider the myriad places I may have left socks in my 25 years, these small, insignificant parts of me scattered across the globe, a dot-to-dot of forgetfulness and momentary distraction.
Of all the legacies to leave on this Earth, socks may be a fairly pointless one, but in its own charmingly universal way, at least it's a start.

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