Can I be beautiful with the shoes I had to wear? And how beautiful?

I often spend at least an hour in the shoe store. Not because I love shoe shopping, but because I must wear orthotics in my shoes 80% of the time, and at Famous Footwear you have access to all the boxes. My ritual? To create a pile of styles that might work…and then try to stuff my orthotics in the shoes, always checking to make sure I have room for my feet! It can be daunting and it takes time. And it always makes me jealous of ladies who can wear tiny ballet slippers that give one’s foot absolutely no support; or those torturous heels that attempt to reshape the foot during the hours one wears them. So I am thinking that somehow I squandered my chances to be like those ladies…I either wore an ill-fitting shoe or I’m just cursed by my DNA.

In the upper grades, when you’re on the cusp of life, girls want to shed bulky clothing. For girls it is happening, their shy ways are morphing into those first stages of womanhood. But me? Instead, I was having foot problems. The doctor my mother took me to, someone lost-in-the-old-ways, not only removed a growth (a plantar wort) on the bottom of my foot using a painful process, he also told my mother to put me in oxfords. Oxfords!!

These are shoes that men might wear, or women who care nothing about fashion. These shoes are leather with stiff soles and of course SHOE LACES. They usually come in black or brown. I must have still been under the influence of the painkillers my mother gave me after the doc shot the bottom of my foot with a form of acid, because when we then went shopping for these shoes, I agreed to a pair of cherry red oxfords. And of course the very next day, I wore them to school. Seventh grade!

That is why Jack D. came up to me at our first of two grade school reunions, (I was in my early thirties) and told me that he’d had a crush on me in eighth grade, but he just could not get beyond the red shoes. Yes, even he remembered them.  I don’t know what shoes I was wearing the night he revealed this, but I can assure you they weren’t oxfords. I moved from those red shoes to saddle shoes and then quietly relied on my mother’s busy life to blot out the doctor’s warning that I had weak arches or something! I can still remember the elegantly thin loafers I wore in my Catholic high school, my white crew socks folded way down to reveal my lovely ankles. (Can ankles be lovely??)

And yes, I had years of wonderful carefree shoes—woven flats in various colors, dyed Peau De Soie for every prom dress or dance ensemble, sandals that revealed lots of skin, heels that were chunky or spindly depending on the style of the season. But most of all years and years of walking around barefoot. I always cleaned my house in my bare feet. Even in winter. I don’t really know why—I guess I thought I moved faster.

But the years caught up with me. Chronic foot pain led to the discovery of a stretched tendon. Surgery was mentioned, but the orthotics now protect that tendon. Foot surgery is always an ify choice, I now being condemned to BIG SHOES. I still cheat and wear little shoes for holidays and evenings out with friends. But trips to the shoe store will never be the same. Bottom line, I can still throw on a pair of athletic shoes and walk for miles. No complaints. But I do wonder if I might have stuck with more-supportive shoes my entire life—if those oxfords hadn’t been RED! How beautiful a thought.