Everyone has a thing. You know this thing. It’s the thing that makes you feel uncomfortable, often so uncomfortable that you will take extreme measures to alleviate the problem. Some women have a thing with their hips or their thighs. Some people have a thing with their hair. And some have a thing with their boobs. I’ve known people who have gotten boob jobs and hair transplants, and while I am ridden with many, many things myself, I never knew what it was like to have such a terrible thing with one part of my body that I would take such drastic measures.
Then I realized that my thing does not really have to do with my hair, my boobs or anything up there. (Although they could be shinier and rounder, but who doesn’t like shinier and rounder?) No, my thing was with my feet. My very painfully wide, hard to outfit feet.
It did not occur to me for a long time that the reason why all those cute shoes I had in my closet that completed my outfits so well, but simultaneously made me want to fall down and cry, was because of the exaggerated width of my feet. Although I realized it, I didn’t automatically accept it. For a long time, I still squeezed my flippers into tiny shoes made for people with medium width feet. And at night my feet would cry themselves to sleep.
It wasn’t until I heard from a friend how painful her bunion removal surgery was that I started fearing for my feet’s safety. I went to a special shoe store where I found lots of wide width shoes and bought the same pair as the silver-haired grandma next to me. I have worn these comfort shoes for a long time now and had resigned myself to never wearing cute shoes again.
But then I made the mistake of accompanying Nathalie shoe shopping and watched her try on cute shoes on her petite, elf-like feet, and I slipped. I bought two pairs of tiny shoes that I knew would not fit, but that did not matter at the time, because when I wore them, people noticed. “Those are some sassy shoes!” someone might cat call at me in the kitchen at work. My feet would blush, unaccustomed to being in the spotlight but secretly reveling in all the attention they were getting.
At night though, it was a different story. Without anyone around, they would cry to me, begging me to help them. Was it really this or the grandma comfort shoes? Were there no alternatives they cried?
I couldn’t bear to hear their suffering any longer, so I got up, turned on my laptop, and for 5 straight hours, I visited multiple websites promising cute shoes for wide feet. This is a summary of what I saw:
I cried bitter tears that night, wondering at the injustice of it all. Wide feet were feet too, gosh dammit. We deserved to be treated better than getting only the shoes that looked like burrito wraps, didn’t we? I was about to end my search when I found a line called Romantic Soles on Zappos. I spotted a single pair of shoes that looked like normal cute shoes! Was this really true? Could my eyes be playing tricks on me? Before they could disappear, I ordered a pair, and today they arrived!
I am completely enamored with both goodies at the moment. One for being non-black shoes my grandma would wear and the other for giving my pictures such awesome blurry backgrounds! (Swoon!)
So they might not be the sassiest shoes ever, but look! There are hearts on the soles! And did I mention they are wide widths?
My new lens makes me so happy I wanted to take pictures of everything in sight. Including my dinner. Look at the greeny greenness of those brussels sprouts! Many more pictures of food and dinners will be coming now because of this. I apologize in advance if looking at pictures of brussels sprouts gets boring. I promise I will try to eat more exciting foods.
I too suffer the curse of the wide footed: if I were less delusional, I'd throw the shoes away and wear the boxes. Well done on your finds!
I have square feet; but I'm a man so having to wear sensible shoes doesn't cause so much fashion anguish.
And I like Brussels sprouts – with vinegar.
Alan
Cute shoes!
Totally cute shoes!.. and can totally relate, my feet where always too small and was forced to wear kids shoes for far to long, do your flippers feel better now? I grew up (a bit) and my feet finally reached adulthood 5, but now most shoes start in a 6, but my sensibilities have once again progressed and I wear nothing but Uggs and Danskos for comfort. I'm also self employed so maybe its a mute point…ummm b-sprouts!
Wow, Sobrina, you have opened my eyes! I have been having a foot issue this very week! For some reason, my feet have been killing me – I've been wearing cute heels to work, and my feet have been killing me at night. Every night for like a week now. So this week I went & bought some ugly no-heeled grandma shoes, and was SOOO embarrassed to wear them. But my feet didn't hurt that night. Maybe, just maybe, I have wide feet??! Who knew? I'm going to go check out Romantic Soles on Zappos…Thank you!! 🙂
~Lynn
RoSe, I think my cousin has size 4.5 feet, if that makes you feel any better! I think she has a hard time finding shoes too 🙁
Razberry Corner, yes, do check them out. I haven't worn my new heels yet (since it's raining here today), but I did a trial run in my apartment last night and they feel so much better than regular width heels!
I know where you are coming from with the wide feet, but I also have big calves and can't get cute boots for winter LOL
Those shoes are super cute! I, too, resigned myself to ugly grandma shoes years and years ago. It's unbelievably hard to find anything that fits my feet and wasn't designed for a man. I've been wearing the same pair of brown leather sandals for 5 1/2 years because I still can't find anything good enough to replace them.
I took a look at Zappos after reading this post. I've had a couple of bad experiences ordering shoes online – including through them – and ended up with shoes that cost too much and never ever fit me. Their selection seems to have improved since the last time I checked them out. I'm still afraid to order anything without trying it on first, though. Sadly, the closest wide shoe store that I have found is a place called "Leonard's" in Las Vegas, and caters to the local drag queens (not kidding) and grandma shoe-lovers. *sigh*
~Rachael~
http://www.damnitwoman.blogspot.com
Oh my–my feet are wide too! Fortunately, I was born without the cute shoe gene. Being boring myself, I go with some fairly basic shoes, but I've had very good luck with Franco Sarto and also Aigner. They probably can't be considered cute but they go well with suits. I will look at the site you found!
Those are super cute shoes! Good find!
i secretly have very wide feet also and am absolutely falling out in my chair at work due to happiness at the cuteness you have found
WOW those are adorable shoes!
(swoon, covet, searching internet)
Thanks for some quality points there. I am kind of new to online , so I printed this off to put in my file, any better way to go about keeping track of it then printing?