Sexy shoes

Some women (a LOT of them, apparently; and based on what I've heard) have a thing for shoes. I've never been been one of them. Talking with other women, I've discovered there seems to be a few theories about women and shoes. One is that even if a woman finds it difficult to find clothes that fit her it's always easy to find a pair of shoes she's really happy with. Another "theory" is that some women are self-conscious about having unattractive feet, so they're on a constant quest for find ways to find shoes that compensate. Yet another theory is that some women (especially those who work full-time where having, not just nice outfits but, nice shoes is important) just need to have a lot of shoes. Then, too, there's the theory that some women have been "brainwashed" into believing "it's just how women are". The list of possible explanations and theories goes on and on, and I'm assuming each woman (who does have a "thing" for shoes) has her own reasons and explanation.

I'm not one to guess, because, as I said, I wouldn't know. It's not that I don't care about what I wear for shoes, because I'm pretty picky about that. My feet haven't been in a shoe or sneaker that ties since, maybe, the 1960's and were used for propelling the swing I was riding on high into the air before being used as breaks in the dirt that inevitably exists under swing sets. (The previous comment doesn't factor in high-school gym class, where sneakers were required. Believe me, with the number of times I found ways to get out of gym class, any sneaker-wearing that took place was close to non-existent anyway.)

No, I care very much about my shoes; and I want to feel feminine in them. It's just that I'm pretty happy with a few pairs of shoes I feel and look good in, as opposed to needing a whole closet-full of different shoes. I've always walked a lot (miles and miles each week), so I do need to make sure my shoes don't cause blisters. Then again, I've been known to walk a couple of miles alongside the Little League Opening-Day parade, quite comfortably in heels.

Walking with parades aside, it's quite possible to find feminine but comfortable shoes for walking; which is why I've always stayed away from "officially named" "walking shoes" and just trusted my feet to detect and decide what is a "walking shoe" and what isn't. It turns out my particular feet say a not-too-spiky pair of heels are actually "walking shoes". Don't let my attachment to heels fool you into believing I'm someone who generally dresses "sexy", though, because I'm not. The look I've always aimed for (not just with shoes but with whole outfits) has been simple and classic but with something that adds a little femininity too. I guess it's my way of expressing that I'm a stable, solid, sensible, serious, individual who hasn't forgotten she's also a woman.

As a result of all that "stable and sensible" I do spend quite a bit of time in "just the right kind" of classic loafer (but it has to be the kind that looks very classic and feminine - not the kind that looks like "any old loafer". It's hard to describe. The point is that in spite of liking feminine shoes, I do spend quite a bit of time in casual, classic, shoes (provided, as I said, my feet and ankles still look feminine in them). I know women who "live" in sneakers and others who "live" in heels. My feet are happy going back and forth between high-heeled boots and flattering-but-sensible sandals. My shoe "wardrobe" tends to consist of a black, brown, and tan version of a few basic styles I like (although I won't wear black casuals). I guess my "thing" is that I don't want to be spending my time and brain thinking about shoes. I just want to have the basics and be able to find a pair of shoes that are right whatever the occasion is - "end of story". When it comes down to it, I guess the solid, sensible, part of me runs the outfit show most of the time, and maybe I take it for granted that my femininity kind of runs through whatever I do anyway. It's only with an accessory here or there that I like to sometimes express just that hint of femininity (maybe to try to let people know I'm not "All" sensible, business-like, and serious).

Last December, my feet and my personality and femininity kind of got separated, though, because I had a really nasty leg injury (from climbing that involved Christmas decorations). Although the injury has been consistently healing, it's just been the last couple of months when I've been able to pay less attention to how I move the leg when I walk (and that's only walking from one room to another, or walking at the shopping center - not going out on those multi-mile walks as I'd been doing until I injured my leg). As a result, I spent the rest of last Winter in (you guessed it) loafers. When the season changed I found two pairs of sandals that were comfortable enough for "The Leg" - one pair in brown, one in tan. They're a little bit clunky looking but feminine nonetheless. They got me through the Summer and early Fall without my having to compromise on the look I like. I tried a couple of other pairs of shoes over the course of Spring and Summer; but just as my feet decide what shoes are "walking shoes", the injured leg has decided what shoes or sandals are at all anything I can wear. It's a good thing I don't have too many special occasions once the holidays are over (and the leg "issue" didn't happen until after the holidays last year). As we all know, though, special occasions aren't just about holidays. Every once in awhile one crops up that's about life - not just holidays.

Last Saturday night was one of those "just cropped up" (and big) special occasions for me, because we had an engagement party for my daughter. It was a cocktail-party-dress kind of event and would be a chance to meet a lot of my daughter's friends and the groom-to-be's family. Between that and hosting the party, I, of course, wanted to look nice. I put together an outfit that I thought was nice, but one I'd also be comfortable in, in view of the fact that I had quite a few preparations and set-up work to do. (Caterers, of course, don't get involved with some things.)

In any case, long before Saturday I had the outfit all planned. I didn't have the shoes planned, and I didn't even have the shoes. Just the thought of trying to think up or find shoes that weren't my comfortable sandals (and that CERTAINLY weren't my comfortable loafers) was something I couldn't deal with. I knew I didn't dare buy them online; and there was so much to do beforehand anyway, I just kind of dreaded addressing the issue of shoes. If I generally have little interest in shoes anyway, you can probably imagine how little interest I had in trying to find shoes that "The Leg" would approve of. Making the favors and talking to the "bakery lady" about the colors of the frosting was just more fun.

So, it wasn't until a little more than week before the party that I went shoe-shopping. I had a certain kind of strappy dress sandal in mind, but the first stores I went to didn't have the kind I wanted. A few stores into the shopping expedition, I saw two nice pairs of strappy sandals. One pair were "silver" but classic, and they had a mid-height, kind of solid-looking, heal. When I tried them on my shopping companion raved about nice they looked, but "The Leg" started to tell me the solid, clunky-feeling, sole and heel felt like concrete blocks. Then I spotted the prettiest and most delicate pair of black strappy sandals with a single glittery ornament at the center of the straps that went across the toes. I thought, "Oooh - Cinderella shoes, sort of, even if they weren't glass and even if I'm old enough to have a daughter who is engaged to be married." Of course, I didn't share this thought with my companion because I knew how ridiculous it would be, coming out of me; and the clunky sandals I've been wearing since Spring made me feel about as far from Cinderella as anyone or anything could get anyway. Even feeling completely out of line for even daring to try such a pair of shoes on, I took the pretty shoes from the shelf. As my companion saw what I showed her, she almost gasped as she said, "Those are SO pretty." She didn't laugh or anything like that, which made me feel that much more right in my decision to dare to try them on. I know, however, that's she's been with me through this "leg thing" all this time, and I know she was doubtful that THIS leg would ever be able to walk on THOSE shoes.

As I slipped on the first shoe (on the uninjured leg) my companion watched in anticipation. As I put on the second shoe and stood up to see if they, like the silver shoes, felt like concrete blocks under my feet; I discovered their flimsy styling meant they did not. They felt like air on my feet, and my friend seemed to glow as she approvingly remarked, "Those are s-e-x-y!"

As I looked in the mirror and saw my feet and ankles looking like they haven't looked in a very long time, it occurred to me that these shoes weren't just going to "make" the outfit. They were going to outshine the outfit. Heck - those shoes were going to upstage my face, head, hair, and anything else that I'd thought (until that Magic Moment) might look pretty good for the party! Loafers-schmoafers, sandals/shmandals: I was going to be Cinderella AND mother-of-the-bride-to-be all at the same time!! The shoes felt good. The Leg was happy. I was happy. Both The Leg and I wondered why I hadn't found a pair of shoes like this ages ago. Maybe we both would have felt better! My shopping companion did seem doubtful as she asked, "Do you think you can walk in those with that leg?" I suppose she thought I'd been dazzled by the look of the shoes and was deluding myself into believing I could function comfortably in them. That wasn't the case. These shoes felt like I was going home or else going somewhere I haven't been in a long time.

My feet called up to me, "This is where we belong!" I was in love with a pair of shoes like I'd never been in love with any pair of shoes before - not my prom shoes, not my wedding shoes, certainly not any of the three pairs of bridesmaid shoes I've worn (I've been "three times a bridesmaid AND a bride, so that saying about "three times a bridesmaid" is not correct, by the way), and definitely not the strappy sandals I'd worn to my son's graduation and been crippled by before I even got into the building. No, these shoes and I were a perfect match. We were meant to be. And, when I say "we" I don't mean the shoes and the "me" I seemed to have become over the last year (at least when it comes to affairs of the feet, legs, and self-image). I mean the shoes and the "real me". The "me" I guess I'd left behind when I started wearing nothing but sensible (but feminine-looking, keep in mind) loafers and sandals; and the "me" who has spent so much time wondering if/when The Leg would ever feel normal again. I mean the "me" who spends so many days working and stressing and doing all those things people do on so many ordinary days, and even the "me" who spent so much time and energy trying to plan a party that would be just perfect for the daughter I see as about as close to perfect as a daughter could be. Oh, I'm still the same, sensible, "me"; and I'll always be the same Mom of three kids who are old enough to get married. I'm even still the same "me" whose nasty leg injury still has just a little way to go before getting back to being good as new (although it's close).

Between the time I bought the shoes and the evening of the party, I pretty much showed the shoes to anyone willing to see how pretty they were. I'm sure more than one of those people had their doubts about The Leg and walking on those shoes. They had no way to know how, when you meet the pair of shoes that are just right for you, you just know they are.

So, the night of the party, as I gracefully made my way from one place in the room to the other on those light-as-air shoes and delicate heels I felt a confidence I haven't felt in quite awhile. The thing is, I've flirted with more than one pair of shoes over the course of my lifetime; and I've been in serious relationships with a pair here or there. Never have I been truly in love with any pair of shoes, the way I was (and remain) in love with the size six-and-a-half, fabric, strappy sandals with the sparkly ornament at the toe.

Toward the end of the night, as I was saying "goodbye" to my niece and her family, her recently-turned-fifteen daughter called my attention to the fact that she and I were wearing "the same" shoes. I joked to her that it made me feel good to know that from the ankles down I could still wear something that someone her age wore. I imagined how the shoes may have made her feel just that much more grown-up, dressed up, and Cinderella-like; while they made me feel just that much younger, dressed up, and Cinderella-like. Maybe it was far more appropriate if my niece's fifteen-year-old daughter felt like Cinderella in the shoes; but inappropriate or not, for me those shoes were a milestone and a reminder and maybe even (mother-of-the-bride-to-be or not) the chance to walk across that floor on feet someone said looked "sexy" - and, hey, when you're a classic, stable, sensible, and slightly still injured mother-of-the-bride-to-be, hearing the word, "sexy" (rather than "sensible") feels pretty good.

Sunday morning I tucked the shoes in their bag, vowing to wear them again the next time there's dinner out at the right restaurant (or whatever other excuse I can come up with to wear them). I don't want those shoes to become only "mother-of-the-bride-to-be" or "mother-of-the-bride" shoes. I want them to be my "me" shoes.

And now I kind of understand why so many women like shoes so much. Live and learn, I guess.

..

OK, so there's more than couple of decades between Cinderella's age and my own. There was no fairy godmother and no wand. (There's nothing very magical about a debit/credit card transaction at a shoe store. In fact, there's nothing magic about a shoe store at all.) I have to say my outfit wasn't anything at all like Cinderella's. On the other hand, I managed to hang onto both of my shoes, not letting one of them get smashed by an ugly step-sister, and certainly not needing to wait until some stranger showed up my door to return one of my shoes. There was certainly no running down of any long stair-cases for me (that was for sure), but had there been I'm fairly sure my not-quite-healed leg would have been the thing that fell off - not just a shoe. Besides, in my case, it wasn't a matter of the clock striking twelve and an unpleasant and immediate transformation back to "reality". I'll be honest: By the time the clock had struck twelve, I was pretty much sitting on any chair and anything within the vicinity that would act as a chair. My transformation back to reality wasn't a matter of being all upset that it was over. As I flung those strappy "glass slippers" off in my dining room, I was pretty darned delighted to be able to do just that.

So, when it comes down to it, there really wasn't much similarity between me and Cinderella. Actually, I suppose it was more of a matter of just thinking of her at all that was the biggest connection between me and the fabled young lady; but - hey - it's been quite awhile since I even thought of Cinderella and my own feet at the same time. All that other stuff aside, those shoes did have their own kind of magic. That's gotta be worth something, right?