High Heels

I like high heels. I remember when I first started teaching, my supervising teacher said, "You'll wear those for the first day or so. Then you'll stop because you've learned." Well, I doubted her. I mean, high heels are never more comfortable than flats. They just never were. But I wore heels to go out in. I wore heels on new year's eve a couple years ago to disaster, but I still wore them. I just like them. I like the sound they make, I like the way they make my legs looks, I just like them. I wore them for supervising today and I felt like a grown up.

But they hurt. My point has always been that I can just take them off. If that is somehow against the rules and my bratty students are going to tell on me, I'll just sit down (typically on school furniture like desks, so if the tattle tales are going to rat me out for no shoes, they'd probably rat me out for desk sitting; I guess I'd stick to sitting behind my desk). I don't always wear heels for teaching or life. Sometimes I feel grubby and sometimes I can pull off my super cute flats. But I'll never give up my heels.

It reminds me of a girl that I knew at uni. She was older than me and always represented that polished (but still fun and a little quirky) femininity. She wore heels with everything. Once, while sitting near her feet, I noticed that her feet were disgusting. Callouses, blisters, bandaids everywhere. But her shoes were gorgeous and you couldn't really see the grossness from a distance. We made eye contact as she caught me eyeing her feet; she gave me a knowing smile. I liked to think that the look meant that she would sacrifice her poor feet for her shoe passion. But I have a feeling that it was more a "look what we women have to do for beauty", which I don't like as much. But that picture of her was still a sense of grace under pressure. She pulled off this polished look while her feet were oozing. I don't need ooze and I don't need to look that polished, but I do like the idea that she'd rather look great while letting her feet earn their callouses than be comfortable in ug-o shoes.

I hope that even while I teach, I don't ever say, "Well, who am I trying to impress?" Because I don't wear heels now to impress. I wear them because they're hot.