I remember a time before Uggs. A time before that cold winter’s afternoon when the Uggs arrived a day late due to a long weekend and my bad planning. A week earlier, sitting at my desk, realising there must be a better way, I searched online and was disheartened when the largest size on their site was a size 13 — so close, yet so far — then the excitement of finding they had an extended sizes option. I’d have to wait for shipping. I remember a time before Uggs, but I can never go back.

At first I put them on with socks. I didn’t know what I was doing, I had never worn them before. They were nice, but I didn’t see the hype. They were warm but they felt… off, they felt… wrong. The cold biting at me the next morning, barely dressed and half asleep, I grabbed the Uggs without thinking. No socks. I crossed the bridge. I became knowledgeable about what it felt like to wear Uggs. I knew, and there was no going back. That was it. I spent the next days wearing Uggs or wishing I was wearing Uggs.

They were a drug. I spent my time either high — wearing the Uggs — or thinking about getting high — thinking about wearing the Uggs. I remember the first time I got high in public. I wore my Uggs to the cinema, sitting there in the dark watching a movie on the big screen, and I crossed another bridge. I was aware of this state of being, aware of the feeling of Uggs at the cinema.

It was a form of enlightenment. I knew something I hadn’t known before — not in the way I know a mathematical formula, but in the way I know how a warm shower feels after being caught in cold rain, or how looking out on a breathtaking view quiets my mind, or how heartbreak makes the world look physically duller. Something that once known could not be unknown, something I must carry.

I have been crossing these bridges my entire life. I started knowing nothing, and from my first steps to putting on Uggs for the first time I have been crossing these one way bridges. But it wasn’t until I was sitting in that cinema, feeling my feet inside Uggs, that I crossed the bridge of understanding. I can never wear Uggs for the first time again. I can chase that feeling for the rest of time and I will never reach it, yet I will wear Uggs to the cinema for the rest of my life.

What bridges have you crossed that I haven’t? Where have those bridges taken you that I am yet to travel? How can we judge those on the other side while we remain naive? Homelessness is a choice. Addicts are weak. These don’t come from cruelty, they come from the other side of a one way bridge that can only be crossed with experience, and there is no way back. With hard won wisdom, some bridges are better left uncrossed. I will remain naive to the bridge of Crocs