What to Do When the Shoe Hits the Floor

I looked up "waiting for the other shoe to drop" online and found this story, from which the phrase is thought to originate:

A man comes in late at night to a lodging house, rather the worse for wear. He sits on his bed, drags one shoe off and drops it on the floor. Guiltily remembering everyone around him trying to sleep, he takes the other one off much more carefully and quietly puts in on the floor. He then finishes undressing and gets into bed. Just as he is drifting off to sleep, a shout comes from the room below, “Well, drop the other one then! I can’t sleep, waiting for you to drop the other shoe!”

Funny thing is, I think it's hard to sleep even after the other shoe drops! That darn shoe acts like a pipe bomb in your head, sending thoughts and debris swirling all over the place.

When the other shoe finally hits the floor, you're presented with missing information. The stuff you needed to understand the full picture. But often, the information or answers you're provided with just lead to more questions. Like: If there's potential that me and my special someone want different things out of life, should I cut off the relationship immediately or wait it out to see if we end up meeting in the middle after awhile?

I don't know what to do with these questions. I don't know if time provides necessary clarity or if eventually someone who is unsure about something will become more sure. Or if, at the early stages of a romance, it's completely ridiculous to even be worrying about that irritating other shoe.

Maybe the trick is to grab the shoes and do a tap dance in them, bopping to the beat of the music, living it up while you can. And if you get good enough at your steps, maybe the person who threw the footwear at you in the first place will find you so entertaining and alluring that they'll join you in your dance. A tapper can only hope.