Welcome home my lovelies!
It took 15 years, but I have finally done it! I have replenished the shoe cache that I had before Rissa was born. Pre-Rissa I had a… I’m not going to call it a shoe fetish, ’cause it wasn’t like I was humping them or anything… instead I’ll call it a shoe… fascination.
I had a good 75 pairs of shoes. Every colour in the ROYGBIV spectrum, kitten heels, wedges, stillettos, boots, leather, suede, floral… I was a happily-shod girl. Then, when I was dumb enough to gain 50 lbs while pregnant, my feet, the actual ligaments in my feet loosened and then SPREAD. (Seriously, DON’T gain 50 lbs when you’re pregnant – not even if your midwife says
‘Some women need 15 lbs to grow a healthy baby and some women need 60.”
She is wrong – you don’t need that much weight to grow a healthy baby – it will take you four years to lose it.) All my lovely shoes no longer fit me. There was no possible way that I could regain what was now lost to me. After-pregnancy, I had to buy shoes at least a 1/2 size too large or specialty shoes in a D width. The cost was going to be astronomical. It could not be warranted.
But now, after a decade and a half of shopping only when items were on sale, of scouring the Value Villages and thrift stores, I am finally back to where I have the perfect pair of shoes to go with those pants, or that skirt, or that dress. I have the knee-high boots that make David salivate. I have comfortable sneakers that fit the width of my post-pregnancy dew beaters.
These shoes will not bring about world peace, they will not help educate my daughter, they will not support my spirituality. My plum, heeled Mary Janes have no greater purpose than making me happy when I see them and perhaps giving my stems a little shape. I’m not saying it’s the best $11.99 I’ve ever spent… but comes pretty close.
