It was the horse shit that did it. A week before Christmas, I found myself walking down the lane to my house bare foot.
It was getting on for 2am. Dan and I had been out with friends. For context, the lane we live at the end of is a steep, unlit track. It can be a bit daunting, as a driver, at night, if you don’t know it well. So, Dan and I tend to ask taxi drivers to drop us at the top, rather than make them venture down it. Better for everyone’s Uber rating that way.
I should add that I rarely take taxis any more. Which might be why it hadn’t occurred to me, until I was attempting it, that walking down the lane in my party heels was going to be a problem. Scratch that: it was going to be an impossibility. The geometry of the situation – and gravity – just did not allow it.
The heels had to come off. The ground was damp and cold; muddy in places, stony in others. And when my iPhone torch illuminated a generous patch of horse dung centimetres from my naked feet…well…I felt like a prize dickhead. A dickhead with a pair of beautiful, black suede, flared-heel Sam Edelman pumps in her hand.
It was not the first time I’ve walked home after a night out carrying my party shoes. But it was the first time I felt, truly, like a mug for doing so.
So. Yes. I think that was the moment I knew.
No more heels for me. Enough.
Afterwards, as I hosed down the soles of my feet in the shower, I felt the onset of a particular kind of calm that comes when you realise you’ve already decided something. I have felt a similar way before ending a relationship and before sitting down to write a resignation letter.
I’d been clinging to something that was already over. Or perhaps it never existed. Everything those high heels were supposed to represent – glamour, mystique, femininity, elegance, sex – had come to this: to shit.
But – oh – I have loved high heels. I’ve put in a shift. I’ve committed to heels. I wore them every day in the office, for years, happily. I prided myself in how well I could walk in them, dance in them, stay up till 3am in them.
Even now that I live deep in muck-boot country, I still dream in the language of stilettos. My reflex is always to plan an outfit that would look best with heels. The knife-ier, the better.
But not any more. My new year’s resolution is this: No more stupid-beautiful shoes.
From now on it’s shoes I can walk in, only. And by walk in, I mean they need to be comfortable enough to do at least a 30-minute stomp across town. I need to be able to walk to and from my house in them. A low bar, perhaps, for footwear. (But, hey, that’s female beauty standards for you 🤷🏻♀️).
For me, 2024 is going to be the year of Birkenstocks, ballet pumps, more trainers. The year I walk with my weight evenly distributed. The year my feet go unsquished.
I realise this might sound faintly, if not totally, ridiculous. And it is. Carrying my shoes, my feet cold and wet and dirty, I saw how I had been made ridiculous – and I didn’t like it, not one bit.
Resolutions are so often about giving things up. Biscuits, alcohol, biting our nails. Certainly, so many of mine in the past have been. But this doesn’t feel like giving something up. It feels like divesting.
And now what about you? Have you made any resolutions? Do you set goals or intentions for the year? Give yourself a one-word theme? Anything you’re divesting from?
Or did you, too, end up barefoot after the Christmas party? Please tell me (and, ideally, make me feel a bit less silly…)
Ah! I love this resolution. I haven't worn heels in years, and my feet feel so much better for it. I need my feet to be comfortable. I like the idea of an unexpected pledge - that feels like where I am this year. Mine is a bit general, but I've been so focused these last few years on building my business, getting pregnant, having a baby - and this is the first year that I don't want to focus on any of those things. I found myself left scratching my head - what do I actually want to prioritize this year? So, I'm working on my self-care. My goal is to focus on rest, self-care, wellness, spending time with my family, all of the things that make me feel good.
I barely ever wear high heeled shoes anymore. I have ballet flats and sneakers and low boots. I have some impractical gold shoes that I wore to a wedding where I was a bridesmaid a couple years ago, but they’re still comfortable enough that I can wear them to a wedding if need be. 2024 will likely be a year where I only wear shoes with heels to my niece’s wedding (she’s getting married in December, and even though she is 22, I am still stunned that I can even have a niece who’s old enough to get married- when I married my husband she was 12 and running around trying to beat out my sister to catch the bouquet).
I really haven’t set resolutions for the year per se, but I did pick a word: hope. And my husband and I talked about our intention to focus on our relationship and improve the friendship aspect of our marriage by trying to have more fun together/be more goofy and silly with each other.