u/GPJ7

I’ll try to make this short. In 2016, the flu games released. It was hard, damn near I say impossible to get a pair at the time. My 14th birthday was that May, and I begged my Dad to get these for me. He said if my mom, who which he was separated from, agreed to pay half, he would get them for me, as they were too expensive and we truly didn’t have the money at the time. My mom agreed, and my Dad and I took an entire day going to 12 stores to enter raffles. Later that week, my dad got a phone call saying that we won a pair at 1 of the 12 stores we entered at.

Even though we struggled and my parents were separated and didn’t get along at all, they made it happen. I still remember the excitement I had going to pick them up and the pride I felt seeing the may people flooding the mall waiting for pairs that people didn’t pick up. Later that same year, my dad ended up in jail. It was an extremely rough time. When he got out in 2017, we lived in a motel, and the small collection I built of less than 10 shoes, I sold them for next to nothing to make sure my dad had his medicine and we had food in that busted down motel.

Me and my dad were homeless a lot. An abandoned house, motels, in the car, sleeping in laundromats, you name it. I graduated high school while living between a car and motel with my dad, and made it to college and graduated with my B.S. in IST and commissioned as an Army Officer in 2025. I’m doing pretty well for myself now.

Fast forward to today, I turned 24. I have a big collection now and have always told my girlfriend who I hit two years with next week, that those 2016 Flu Games meant the absolute most to me but I have just been waiting to find them for a good price. I always emphasized how I didn’t want the 2025 pair because the 2016 pair holds a special place for a certain time in my life and the people that made it happen for me. Today, 10 years later, she gifted me a brand new pair of the exact same pair I got for my 14th birthday.

I know this was a lot. If you read, you read, and if you don’t, you don’t, I don’t really care. Just wanted to share and shine light on how something so simple can hold so much weight. You guys be blessed.