Suffer for Fashion

Not every woman loves shopping, but almost every woman I know loves shopping for one thing: SHOES. No matter who you ask, she'll give you some variation on the same comment: "there's no such thing as a bad foot day." (That said, I once had an infected ingrown toenail, which definitely led to a few horrendous foot days.)

Until about a year ago, I used to love nothing more than a good shoe-shopping excursion. I'm 5'1", and a cute pair of heeled shoes not only added 3-4 inches to my stature, but also made it possible for me to purchase big-girl jeans that I only had to roll up once. Sadly, bad knees + heels are pretty much an orthopedist's nightmare (or wet dream, depending on how much profit he or she will see from the resulting surgery). I'm not saying that heels contributed to my knee injury. But once my pain became severe enough, I knew it was time to give them up. That also meant hemming all my pants, some of which are now actually too short to wear with anything but flats.

Now, I have three pairs of shoes that are "legal" to wear. Sneakers, black clogs with arch support, and a pair of worn-out brown flats. All of those shoes have a market price of well over $100. That's another thing I miss about good knees: cheap shoes. Nothing quite like a last-minute trip to Payless to pick up a pair of $15 "CFM" five-inch heels that will fall apart after one rough night. (If you don't know what CFM heels are, I highly recommend that you don't google the term at work.)

Over the past year, my shoe style has gone from "cute, sexy, fun and occasionally ridiculous" to "I thought you were my grandpa until I looked at the rest of you." I wear one of the three of my unsexy pair of shoes with every single outfit, from gym clothes to business suits to dresses. Every weekend I consider going to the shoe store to pick up something new, but the thought of spending my tax return on a pair of orthopedic sneakers just isn't exciting enough to kill an hour of my hard-earned Saturday off.

Someday, when my knee is back to normal, I'd like to say I'll be able to pull out those chunky wedges that make my calves look hot. But the reality is, even if it's just psychological, I don't know that I can ever wear uncomfortable heels again. I haven't had a blister in months, and at the end of the day, I never feel like I have to put up my throbbing feet.

Beauty hurts.