My Feet Filed for Divorce at My Wedding

I used to own beautiful, terrible shoes. Not anymore.

I bought my first pair of black patent leather stilettos in college. Pointy-toed, unreasonably tall … and I loved them. I remember that they were BCBG (Y2K icon), and when I was wearing those, you couldn’t tell me anything. I wasn’t exactly original — every girl in my sorority owned a pair like them. In the early 2000s, the pointy-toe stiletto wasn’t really optional.

Look! Here they are on eBay. This really takes me back.

I danced in those beauties until 2 a.m., more than once, and for years my feet just... went along with it. No blisters, no complaints. I genuinely thought “my feet are killing me” was just something people said at the end of a night out, an expression.

Boy was I wrong.

I found this out in my early thirties, and by then, I wasn’t even staying out until 2 a.m. much anymore. That’s the part that felt unfair. I’d already scaled back. My feet didn’t seem to care. The pain and numbness started showing up earlier and earlier each time, like my body had just stopped giving me the free pass it used to.

Then, six years ago, I wore my wedding shoes.

They weren’t even that high. I remember thinking, almost smugly, that I’d chosen sensibly. It didn’t matter. I made the mistake of once again dancing the night away, and when I woke up, the pain and numbness was the worst it had even been. And it lasted for 3 days.

That was when I said, enough is enough.

The beginning of the end. But look how cute I look.

I thought this would be the part where I swore off heels forever and retreated into a life of purely orthopedic sneakers. It wasn't. That’s its own kind of extreme, and also, frankly, most of those shoes are hideous.

(A brief aside: could someone, anyone, in the arch-support-shoe industrial complex please make supportive heels and sandals that don’t look like they were designed by a podiatrist who has never once been invited anywhere? I would pay real money.)

Instead, I made some new rules for myself. Skinny heels are still allowed, but they’re capped at two and a half, maybe three inches, and they need real cushioning or they don’t come home with me. I’ve also developed an unexpected fondness for a thick, sturdy heel. Harder to dress up, but so much easier to actually walk in.

And when I do wear real height, I treat it the way you’d treat a strong cocktail: with caution. Sit when I can. Stand and walk sparingly. Save and the dancing for shoes that can actually take it.

Which brings me to the closet itself, which tells the whole story pretty clearly at this point. There are Ferragamos in there. The good stuff, saved for the handful of occasions each year that actually deserve them. There are well-loved pairs of supportive but still cute flats (like my Tod’s loafers) which do a completely different job: no occasion required, just shoes I can walk in for hours.

And then there’s what I actually reach for on a random weekday, which is a pair of Hoka Clifton sneakers with Dr. Scholl’s inserts jammed inside, because apparently that is who I am now, and I have made an uneasy but total peace with it.

A Tale of Two Lifestyles

That contrast (the Ferragamos I save and the Hokas I actually live in) says more about this whole shift than any single pair of shoes could.

And that’s really the point.

I don’t think this is a story about getting older, even though it’s tempting to file it there. I think it’s a story about running out of patience for being uncomfortable just to look a certain way, and about realizing that “I suffered for this outfit” was never actually the compliment I thought it was in my twenties.

Cute stopped being worth it around the same time I stopped needing an outfit to prove anything when I walked into a room. Which, coincidentally, is around the same time the rooms got better.

Proof I still dress up. (pictured in my Ferragamos)

Here’s my only real rule now:

Dress up. Dance if you want to. Just make sure you can still feel your toes by the time you get home.