My Right Foot
I had a near-death experience this weekend.
Well, okay, not exactly near death, but all my shoes did flash before my eyes.
I was in Minneapolis on a work trip last week, and on my first (and last) free day there, I decided to do — what else — some shopping. (I also decided to visit the Mall of America as a sociological field study, but that is another story to be told another day…) So midway between looking at the rather small selection of Prada shoes at Neimans and refueling at Jamba Juice, I suddenly felt this shooting pain in my right foot. I was wearing some Tods sandals — flats, with those bumps on the bottom of the sole that always trick me into thinking they are somehow therapeutic — and while I am always prepared for some amount of shoe discomfort (for me, “not terribly uncomfortable” is as good as it gets), this was beyond the pale. The pain shot through the top of my foot, between the ankle and the big toe, and it was almost paralyzing. Worse, it seemed to be most intense when I wasn’t putting weight on my foot. There was no rhyme or reason to it, no way to tell how I could adjust my movements to prevent the pain from coming back.
And that’s when my shoes started flashing before me. Was this, at long last, the end for me — the end of fashion? I thought of all the stilettos-slash-torture devices sitting in my closet and wondered if I would ever see them again. I fought back tears. Would I now be sentenced to a life of… of… orthotic shoes?
As I hobbled around the rest of the day, I paid even more attention than usual to the shoes people were wearing. I tried to spot the comfortable shoes, and I despaired at the sight of so many Easy Spirits. There is only so far you can go with Prada Sport, after all. Then I thought I’d better make a trip to Taryn Rose’s store — she was an orthopedic surgeon after all, and her shoe designs, I supposed, did beat Easy Spirit.
Of course, by Monday I was back in New York and back to my old tricks. The pain had subsided at 30,000 feet somewhere over Pennsylvania, so I threw caution to the wind and slipped on the high heels. Isn’t that what happens when you have a near-death experience, anyhow? You realize that you have to appreciate the here and now. That you can’t take it with you, and surely not in three-inch heels.
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August 24th, 2005 15:11
I had a pair of Tod’s driving mocs that I wore a few times and lost interest in, until the last month when I threw them on to run some errands. After 10 minutes of walking I had blisters, and after 20 more minutes I was crippled and had to cab it to my destination. I figured that they hurt because they hadn’t been worn in a while, so I borrowed a pair of my mothers’ Tods to see what happened. Same result! I’m permanentely switched to Delman for all my flats.
August 24th, 2005 17:16
My shoe habit has been nipped in the bud for the last 6 months–alas! Christmas last year brought the excruciating pain of a bunion gone over the top. No more 3 inch heels! February I had bunion surgery, and with it, ugly shoes for a swollen, tender foot. Thank goodness for thongs in the summertime!
I am just getting back to my beautiful shoes–I hope that by October I’ll be back in my round-toe fabulous pumps…
It is a sad sad thing.
August 25th, 2005 01:09
Wow, I should consider myself lucky huh. (But yay for you, fall shoes are so much better than summer shoes anyway!)
But does even SURGERY really change our behavior? It’s like Sienna Miller going back to Jude Law. You know it’s bad for you but you just can’t help it, dammit.
August 29th, 2005 05:31
I have found to my anguish that the secret to heels and comfort is to NEVER, repeat NEVER, go the comfort route. I moved to a remote mining town in Papua New Guinea some years ago where there were no pavements so good shoes were put aside temporarily for sensible shoes. When I left I found that decades of stilletto wearing had been undone completely and my feet now refuse to cope with them. I remember with great fondness those pretty, strappy, expensive but divine little things I used to wear while I clop around in generally hideous orthotics and the like.
August 31st, 2005 11:34
Wendy, I do believe you state it rightly–I’ve been wearing “comfortable shoes” for 6 months. The lack of any foot pain is quite addictive. I keep trying to stuff my feet back into my heels, and the feet complain!
I suppose I used to ignore the complaints, but now it is harder to do so!
We’ll see what happens this fall–that was my self-imposed deadline for back to heels.
It is still hot hot here, so I’m in thongs and flats at the moment.
Maybe the transition will be to heeled boots first–no binding…
September 8th, 2005 22:30
i just turned 26, and i just got hired for my first job. tragic i know, but i never really needed a job in the past. meaning all my shoes were for partying or vacationing and the things i do in between (i.e. shopping,lunch-ing). so now, when i walk around at the office ppl give me this dirty look, like i was wearing the same outfit from last week?! but in reality its them who are outfit repeaters! so one day, i asked my frend what the “look” was all about, and she told me that they all think my shoes are too flashy for the work place (frowns). so now, i need help, i dont know what to wear to the office, we dont have a strict dress code and i can basically wear anything as long as i dont offend these old ppl i guess! i dunno! im young, my feet can walk around all day in 3 inches manolos, but the “look” is rubbing me off that right! and id rather kwit this awful job than wear.. i cant even bring myself to say it!