He was ten years old when he had his first pair of shoes. Even though their supplies in their store had been low because of the relentless tax collectors fleecing their meager money, and the enemy soldiers prowl about in the streets in tireless patrols seeking people like him, his mother managed to get a decent pair for him. "You must always wear these from now on," she had fearfully instructed him, shoving the shoes into his feet in haste with trembling hands. "You must never remove them."
At first he did not understand the need for the shoes, he was fine without them before, his want to voice this displeasure evaporated when he saw his mother's stricken expression, and so he kept silent. But as time passed on more instructions had been drilled into his head by her, until he felt suffocated by them.
"Don't leave this house unless I tell you." She would run errands by herself, leaving him alone in the house for many hours, trying hard not to let the dread consume his young mind, knowing that the boogiemen were very much real, and waiting outside in the streets.
"Ignore them. Hurry." She would tell him as she shoved him forward, when he showed hesitation in his steps as a young neighbor screams vainly for help as the Fire Nation soldiers drag her to an empty house serving as their barracks. He never saw her again.
Tears in her already weary eyes as she shook his shoulders desperately, as if doing so would shake common sense into him. "You mustn't earthbend anymore. If you love your mother, you must promise me." He was already thirteen when she caught him levitating rocks at the palm of his hand out of boredom, and missing badly for his father. His mother was too busy trying to keep them safe, but for some reason he felt more isolated than ever.
But he was all that she had, and he knew that as well. And so as much as he wanted to resent her for the rules, he doesn't have the heart to do so. And so he followed her wishes, allowing a bit of his spirit to die for the sake of survival.
Until the Avatar and his friends came into the town, with Katara showing him true courage. And by a great miracle he found his lost father again, the missing earthbenders, and with all their help, liberated his hometown from the enemy for good.
And the first thing he did as he soon as he found his true freedom was to immediately remove his shoes, feeling the earth once again.