shoe-shopping angst

if i KNEW i was only going to live just 2 more years, i would play more and consciously spend more of my available money and travel more and be decadently self-indulgent for some things... but stop doing other things!!! For instance, i might not buy that new pair of shoes i was looking at, knowing that the collection of shoes that i already have on hand will in aggregate suffice quite nicely... it's truly the first time in my life i have thought about NOT being around long enough to wear out a pair of comfy shoes!!! trippy!
if i KNEW i was going to live 20 more years, i would be making some hard financial choices, probably being much more frugal in case some significant portion of those years i was not employable or at least wouldn't make the income levels i've grown accustomed to... so in the shoe closet, i'm blessed with an abundance of adequate footware -- so could make do without adding another pair.

so the extremes (brief and long life expectancy) lead to a "don't buy them" feeling -- and the entire fuzzy middle (living some amount between 2 & 20 years)  would tend to push me into "buy them" mode... especially since they are a replacement for a pair i wore out in Cali and i'd likely have long enough to wear the new ones out too! :)

the mystery is that, just like everyone else... i don't know how long i'll be here, can't know, and any road is possible at this moment!  so... do i buy the shoes??? and if i decide to wait instead, how long do i wait?  what aspects of my universe do i put on hold until there's clarity?  and what if clarity never comes?

in the end i purchased.  it seemed like a hopeful approach -- to expect to be around long enough to get good use out of them and to also trust that the universe is going to take care of me financially as long as i don't turn into a compulsive shoe shopper!

PS: no, they weren't red! but perhaps once again i'll look for a red pair of shoes this summer (had a spectacular fail attempting to purchase a pair of red shoes last year in PG)