Of Shoes, and Ships, and . . . No, Just Shoes

Jill Pinnella Corso of Back Home Blog has a post that strikes a chord with me. It’s about shoes.

When I was in my 20s and 30s, I wore a lot of heels. And by that, I mean that I wore heels as a grad student. I was really overdressed for a grad student.

I continued to wear heels, although thanks to the influence of Sex and the City, I gratefully stopped wearing nylons in my early 30s. Seriously, those things are a blight on humanity–they’re hot, they’re uncomfortable, they snag and rip and make you look sloppy with no warning at all. (Kate Middleton, I don’t care how much you love them. You are wrong.)

But the heels continued. When I was dating Mr. Sandwich, I had a collection of cute heels. I kept wearing them until after we were married. Then, one day, as I was walking to the corner, a neighbor in our building said, “I don’t see how you walk in those. They would make my feet hurt!”

That neighbor had some sort of magic powers, because Presto! Change-o! I could no longer wear those shoes. They made my feet hurt.

Then I got a new job, and I started commuting by bus. Which means that I stood a lot, and I discovered very quickly that I didn’t like standing on the bus in heels. It dramatically increased my odds of turning my ankle, and who enjoys that? Not me, anyhow.

For a while, I wore running shoes and brought a dressier option to change into at the office; I even bought a shoe rack so that I could leave shoes at the office rather than lugging them back and forth every day. But I often found that I would have to go straight into a meeting, without the opportunity to upgrade my footwear.

(Then I got pregnant and my shoe options continued to narrow–ironically–until my feet were so swollen that I could only wear Mr. Sandwich’s running shoes.)

When I came back to work, I decided that I needed commuter shoes–something that would be comfortable for the days I had to stand on the bus ride, but that would still look presentable if I had to join a meeting.

black Mary Jane flats for commuting

Over time, I stopped changing into the heels. The commuter shoes (similar, although I don’t remember paying that much) were just so . . . comfortable.

And while I’ve tried a few pairs of wedges recently, they’re just not as easy to wear as flats.

Plus, really, I don’t need to be taller. I think my height is somewhere around average, but I’m as tall as I need to be.

So I’m done (barring the occasional exception, I suppose) with heels.

Now I just need some new flats.

10 thoughts on “Of Shoes, and Ships, and . . . No, Just Shoes

  1. Cute option. I’m a pants girl, rather than skirts (not gutsy enough or blessed with cute legs enough for the stocking-less look). So my favorite shoe is a nice low-heeled black ankle boot for underneath pants. Comfortable, stable, and I can wear any silly color sock I darn well please and no one has to know! ๐Ÿ™‚

    1. I need to expand the pants portion of my work wardrobe. Also the boots portion. I do have one pair of ankle boots, but I’m not in love with them.

  2. I only wear heels if I’m going someplace very fancy these days. Luckily, in my line of work, almost no one wears heels. I am all about the cute comfort shoes! I love Camper, but can rarely find them here. So I wear a lot of Clarks and Naot and Seibel.

    1. Weddings and job interviews. That’s pretty much all I can come up with. I just got a pair of Clarks from a co-worker who needed to replace them with something that could accommodate her orthotics–and wow, are they nice.

  3. I am 4’10”, so you would think that I would want to wear heels. Oddly though, it makes me look like a little kid wearing her mom’s shoes for dress up. I stick to flats. And I don’t care what anyone says, heels are not comfortable.

    1. Wedges are . . . well, I’m willing to go as far as “less uncomfortable.” But they’re not flats.

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