Once you meet me, it is fairly clear that I like shoes. I really enjoy wearing high heels, and the prettier, flashier, the better. I’m not really sure where this love of shoes comes from. My mom wasn’t ever super into shoes, nor did I have a friend who was into shoes. It was just something I fell into, I suppose.

I could speculate a little more, and perhaps my love of shoes comes from the fact that I don’t like my feet that much. Ever since I was born, my feet were flat and they were over-pronated. I always complained about my feet hurting especially after long hikes. My parents finally took me to see a podiatrist who told them I already had arthritis developing in my feet and I needed surgery right away in order to solve the problem. So I spent the summer before my freshman year of high school practically bed-ridden. There is a picture of me at a pool party sitting on a lounge chair with my feet elevated and my arms crossed because I couldn’t swim or walk around.

Fast-forward to now, and my feet are better than they were, but they still occasionally hurt and cause me problems. They are also still flat, just not as flat. So maybe I wear pretty shoes to hide my feet. The other reason I wear high heels is because it actually feels better on my feet. The best thing to wear is tennis shoes with my orthotics, but I can’t wear those with my outfits everyday. And between high heels and flats, my feet feel worse at the end of the day after wearing flats than they do after wearing high heels.

So, there you have it. I do like shoes, especially pretty high heels, but they also feel better than flats. People ask me all the time, “Don’t those hurt your feet?” And they probably think I’m lying when I respond, “No.” But the truth is, no, they don’t hurt my feet. I genuinely like them, and flats hurt worse than high heels.