Fat flats falling faster finds fattie

I have an obsession with the color red. Some would find this odd since I can’t see red. Some would find it odd since red is such a vibrant and hard-to-match color. Some would find it odd because they simply don’t care.

Which I can respect.

I’ve also discovered an obsession with peep-toe shoes. As summer kicks in and I prepare to get a pedicure, I’m debating my choice in summer footwear. Do I go for my traditional brown-and-black-flats that have survived many a summer under my treacherous step, or do I go with a few well chosen staples in exciting new colors? Do I explore heels, having only made it to a two-inch in the last two years and dreaming of 4 inch kittens?

Just as my wallet cries out for relief I’m reminded of something my mother once told me about heels and fat. At the time I was creeping into puberty and holding fast at a size 14. My 5 foot frame had plenty of early-bird curves and all I wanted for “Christmas” was a pair of red leather shoes….like these.

Instead, I got something like this:

and cried in my waking moments. I was mortified to wear these ugly, flat, goes-with-your-jeans shoes. I wanted to look smart and chic like the ‘pretty’ girls in school. Too bad I was ‘chubby,’ my mother told me. I couldn’t wear heels, I would fall all over them and look ridiculous. Didn’t I know fat & flats = safety and security? Better not tempt the fates with a wedge or stacked heel.

I lived by this mantra until last year. I figured I fell enough on my own with or without shoes on to continue fearing the heel
. I also figured that fat or not, a nice heeled shoe would be worth a little flabby embarrassment if in fact my fat legs looked ridiculous. Slipping on my first pair of 2 inch wedge sandals in black was akin I’m sure to a religious experience. The heavens sang, the rivers parted, small children brought gifts of flowers and diet pills. My mother in all her wisdom was wrong; I fell more in flats than I did all summer in heels.

Thus a euphoric addiction to the next-big-heel was created. And a new summer of new shoes is upon us. What I can only hope is a continuation of good fortune and limited flats on these fat legs in the months to come.

• «Previous Post
• Next Post »