Dumbledore Was Right

It's confession time, which I suppose is fitting since I visited Westminster Abbey on Wednesday. Mine is not the juiciest confession and certainly isn't the kind of confession that I used to be guilted into making by the Catholic church, but here we are: I love socks. It's one of my many foot related oddities.

I haven't always had such a deep affection for socks. My love of socks started in earnest during my senior year of high school - though I did have an affectionate relationship with a sock puppet named Abner about four years earlier. But my senior year of high school I decided that I would wear mismatched socks every school day. My slightly strange logic was that then even if I didn't get into college, I would have accomplished something. When I entered college in the fall, I was still wearing mismatched socks.

People have noticed both my mismatched socks and my affection for them, and I consequently get a lot of socks as gifts. As Dumbledore said, "One can never have enough socks." That, and I believe socks are one of the greatest gifts a person can receive. While a practical gift on the most obvious level that everyone needs to wear socks - to face winters in New England in any case - socks serve another function that I am more concerned with.

Separated by time and space from so many people I love, my socks provide with me walking mementos. I have a sock drawer full of friends and family and not in the creepy serial killer kind of way. I have superhero socks from my brother, starry socks from my parents, and panda and stripped socks from best friends. So as I walked by the Houses of Parliament and along the Thames this week, my feet and I were thinking of you. Unless you haven't given me socks. In which case, maybe I was still thinking of you, but you'll just have to take your chances now won't you?

Tomorrow, I head off on a day trip to Bath, where I will have to remove my socks at some point. But hey, that means I'll be thinking about a lucky one among you while I strip. Ish.