Orange Girl World

I have never been a shoe girl. I never wanted to be Imelda Marcos with a closet full of a thousand shoes. When it comes to my fashion hang-ups, I have always been more about dresses and coats. I have more winter coats than it is feasible to wear in one season.
This is not to say that I have been entirely immune to shoes. I have had some gorgeous pairs in my time, like the wicked, four-inched, black-laced, platform heels I bought for the Winter Ball in the senior year or my cute red New Balance sneakers with bright-yellow, reflective N’s. For the most part, however, I have a simple philosophy of shoes. I buy a classic pair of black boots to get me through the autumn, winter and early spring. In the late spring and early summer, I switch to flip-flops.
This system suited me for years. Then, in the spring of 2005 a huge bump developed on my right foot. It was sore and angry looking. I thought I had broken a toe or something. I had tripped getting off the bus a few weeks earlier. I thought I had agitated the break by walking on it. A series of x-rays, one biopsy and one scan later, I learned that I hadn’t broken my foot. I had a giant cell tumour growing inside a bone and slowly eating it away.
It had to be operated on immediately. The surgeons removed a large section of bone along with the tumour. They patched me up using synthetic bone to fill in the gap they had left. My foot was left misshapen. My big toe was now considerably smaller than the rest and I still had an odd bump on my foot.
Flip-flops were no longer going to work in the summer. My foot was hideous and needed to be hidden away if I wasn’t going to scare small children. Fortunately, this was the year ballet pumps became a fashion staple. It was an answer to my prayers. They were comfortable, hid my ugly foot, looked reasonably summery and, best of all, they came in hundreds of glorious colours. I bought loads of them.
I was sorted for life, I thought. Until nearly one year to the day of my first operation, my surgeon discovered a new tumour. The next day I was back on the operating table. This was for a much more complicated procedure. They were going to remove the tumour and even more of the bone. They were going to cut a section of ligament in case it had been contaminated. They were going to take a bone-graph from my leg to place in my foot. It would be held together by a series of bolts and plates.
The recovery process took months as I waited for the bones and metal parts to knit together. When the plaster finally came off, I was pleasantly surprised. My foot was almost normal looking if you ignored the giant scare across it. However, even if it looked okay, my foot was never going to be the same again.
The ligament they cut meant that movement in my big toe would be limited. I was warned against running, jumping and any high impact exercise. There were other things that the doctors didn’t tell me about. When I stand for any length of time of I get foot cramp, and then there is the swelling.
Wearing my tiny, flat ballet pumps is no longer an option. After only a couple hours of wear my foot swells. Wearing any sort of heel is not an option. My toes can no longer bend to accommodate them. Wearing anything but the most practical, comfortable shoes leads to complications.
This has become my shame. I never coveted Manolo Blanik’s previously, but now knowing that I could never wear them, makes me undeniably sad. As I walk around shoe shops picking up pairs and checking to see how sturdy the soles are, I feel old. Do you know how difficult it is to find comfortable shoes that don’t make your feet look geriatric?
Stupidly, I feel much less sexy. My husband assures me this isn’t the case, but then I picture myself wearing a gorgeous dress with a pair of orthopaedic shoes. It isn’t pretty.
I have found some ways around it, wearing Doc Martins with black tight and a flowery dress looks punky and edgy and spares my feet. I have a few pairs of multi-purpose Clarks that go well with all my trousers and jeans, but killer heels and strappy sandals are out of the question. Somehow this makes me feel less of a woman. I will never be able to live up to the Sex and the City benchmark. In my mind I will never be utterly fabulous. There is a feminine ideal I physically will not be able to live up to. I won’t be able to trip the light fantastic. I would have to clump across it, and that’s just not good enough.