I’ll admit I’m a flip flop, slip on and barefoot kind of gal. Wearing shoes isn’t one of my favorite things. I think because I live in a beach town and it’s always warm, even when it’s winter everywhere else. I usually only wear shoes when it’s raining, or in the evening for football games, when it’s actually cold enough to wear socks. Oh, then there’s the heating-up issue of getting too hot wearing shoes and socks. My body temperature is 10-15 degrees cooler when I’m not wearing shoes.
This does not mean I don’t like shoes or wearing them, it’s just a silly habit formed over the years. I actually LOVE shoes, but since gaining all the weight over the years, I no longer ENJOY wearing them. It was actually because of a cheap pair of beautiful turquoise heels, that I found my motivation to embark on my weight loss journey.
Seriously, it wasn’t until I ordered the shoes online and received them that I had any motivation to drop the weight. I certainly had the DESIRE, the WANT, the NEED, but ZERO motivation. When the shoes arrived I was thrilled! They were exactly like the photos online and that doesn’t happen as often as we’d like, right? I went straight to my bedroom and locked the door. What? Do you want to know why I did that? Well, I didn’t want to embarrass myself in front of my kids or husband. So, I better describe these shoes.
I refer to them as my stripper heels, but mostly because of their height. They have a five inch heel off a small step wedge, so the angle to put your foot in is basically like standing on your toes, but they’re so beautiful and of course my favorite color of turquoise. They’re suede and have a strap around the ankle for additional support. At the time of arrival, I was around 275 lbs., my lowest self-esteem, highest weight and low point in my life. Nothing was going right, I merely existed. What a terrible way to live life!
I placed the box on my bed and sat down to put them on and guess what? Well, I was glad I had locked the door! It was awful, I felt worse than I did before I ever saw them online. I couldn’t get my foot into them at all! My solid, size nine foot that never let me down, was too pudgy and would not move into the position required to get them on. I tried and tried to twist, arch and nudge my foot into the shoe, but it only went on half way. I screamed inside, Are you kidding me? To be honest, even IF I had been able to put them on, I would have NEVER worn them because I was so overweight. I would have looked ridiculous, as top heavy as I was, and then putting these heels on, I was just asking for people to poke fun of me and become a viral meme. No thanks!
I was shocked and angry, angry at myself again. I pulled off the half fitting shoe (see that? I’m still an optimist), put it back into the box with all the packaging neatly together, closed the box and sat on my bed. I was distraught and broken. I was screaming and crying on the inside. A pair of shoes had broken my spirit, or at least what was left of it, existing all these years inside this cocoon of bad food and exercise choices coupled with personally created disorders. A pair of high-heeled shoes had broken me!
The knock at my door snapped me out of it quickly and as I opened the door, my daughter stood there asking what was wrong. I showed her my beautiful shoes and she instantly fell in love and put them on her big size 10 feet, but they FIT! Insult to injury. My head just spun with all her inquiring questions about the shoes. It was then that I had my first Ah-Ha moment and told my daughter, I was keeping them and one day, I would wear them. To where, I knew not since I really had no place to wear them except church and they didn’t seem quite appropriate for going to church. One day I would wear them, but when that day would come was entirely up to me and me alone.
Myrnadez 