What happens when you stop wearing heels?

A couple of months ago, I visited the Supersports Factory Outlet at MBK Shopping Centre in Bangkok. It’s a great place to shop for off-season sports shoes and the like, and I snagged a pair of sports shoes at a very reasonable price. But this post isn’t about shopping at Supersports.

It’s about how I suddenly realised that my feet weren’t the same as they used to be once I stopped wearing heels.

In college and university, I all but lived in sneakers. I bought my first pair of working shoes (with heels) before I started work. Like all young working adult women then, I was conditioned into thinking that we had to wear heels to work, to fit some sort of mould; almost like a rite of passage into adulthood.

I started my working life in a traditional profession during vastly different era, where the work culture was very traditional, and misogyny was (is, even) rife. Wearing skirts was practically compulsory, and heels were expected. Young ‘uns will never get it LOL! 😀

While I was never hugely into shoes, I did find myself conforming to the norm. I wore heels ranging from the thick clunky ones that I could walk in, to almost stilettos, that I could not LOL! 😀 I wore round-toed shoes to sleek, pointy toed heels. They were uncomfortable, I battled blisters, and I never enjoyed wearing heels. But I conformed, because that’s what we do.

As the years wore on, I noticed that my feet had developed bunions due to the awkward, unnatural shape they had been forced into over the years. While I did not wear tight leather heeled shoes that often, I wore them often enough that it had affected the shape of my feet. The bunions on one of my feet would twinge now and again, but they weren’t that serious to warrant treatment – not yet.

And then, the pandemic hit over 5 years ago (gosh, already!) and I retreated to a casual lifestyle.

I stopped wearing heels, because there was nowhere to wear them to. I was semi-retired from office work, and there were no beauty events to attend. Social activities had ground to a halt for over 2 years.

In that time, I walked around barefoot, in slippers, or in sneakers. My feet were no longer restrained and constrained in tight, fitting leather shoes. I was no longer compelled to wear heels, putting strain on my knees, back and putting my posture in an unnatural position. I could wear whatever I wanted, and all I wanted was something comfortable on my feet that would protect them, and allow me the stability to walk comfortably, and to walk my dog.

When I needed to replace my sneakers recently, I took a long hard look at my feet and realised:

• They were no longer the same size – my feet are now up to a whole size bigger than they were before, and for some reason, my sneaker sizes were almost 2 whole sizes bigger! This realisation was crucial, as I had been buying all the wrong sizes based on my old feet size, and I was wondering why my feet felt uncomfortable in my new shoes.
• They were less narrow – I’d always had narrow feet, and they still are fairly narrow, but no longer narrow enough to fit into my old leather shoes LOL RIP my narrow Ferragamo shoes I had to specially buy online because they don’t carry the width here 🙁 My feet seem to have ‘spread’ so are wider than they used to be
• My bunions were less severe and my feet look less deformed – I hadn’t realised that my bunion hadn’t twinged in a while, and while my toes aren’t straight, they appeared to be less deformed. I had not done anything to them in this time, merely allowed my feet to be in a natural state.
• How liberating and free my feet felt in non-leather shoes – I wear exclusively sneakers or slippers these days, and my feet feel so free! They can actually MOVE and breathe now.

I’m sad about my cupboard of heels and shoes that no longer fit, of course. But at the same time, I’m happy that my feet have been allowed to revert to a more natural state, and that I no longer am forced to conform to societal norms and trot around in heels when I don’t enjoy it.

Is this post about not wearing heels, or just about feeling more liberated by throwing off yet another shackle of societal norms? It’s hard to say – probably a little of both 🙂

Do you still wear heels?

PB