I am a self admitted shoe whore. Well shoes and bags if I’m to be completely honest. But it started with shoes. I remember I became friends with a girl named Michele, we both worked at this children’s clothing store that was very popular in the ‘80’s in my neck of the woods. Michele was young, beautiful and really dressed for work, accessories, heels, body con dresses, the works. I wanted that look so we shopped together and I began wearing heels just about everywhere; especially to work. So I can easily say Michele sparked my love of shoes, boots, all with at least a 2 inch heel. Back in the day I did not go out with my friends unless I was wearing heels.
I began working at an auto parts store right next door to the children’s clothing store. I continued to dress up for work. It didn’t matter that I was a cashier, I wore dresses with heels to that job almost every day. The owner of the store was an interesting man. I asked him why he wanted a woman to be his cashier and he answered that he felt men cursed less and had all in all more calm behavior when he had a woman working in the store. I worked there almost all through college. It was a fun place to work. And the environment didn’t stop my love of wearing heels and nice shoes to work. I think the only place I didn’t wear heels was to college because there was so much walking involved from one building to another, and I won’t get into how terrible the parking was.
Fast forward to today. I no longer wear heels; much. My feel totally kill me if I do. I’ll wear flats whether it be a sandal or a boot. Heels wouldn’t work very well with the job I have now anyway. One day I wore a short boot with a 2” heel and I ended up literally running from one classroom to another to keep up with emergencies that were happening that day, up the stairs, down the stairs …Bad day to wear a heel. I still love shoes and boots. Today I organized my shoe closet. I have a lot of shoes. I didn’t count how many pairs. Every variety of sneaker, sneaker with a wedge heel, then flats, sandals, platform sandals, I will wear a platform heel if we are going out. (I wore platform heels when my kids were small, I could run a marathon in a platform heel I tell ya).
So it was interesting to go through my shoe collection. To think about how my collection has changed over the years. Changed the way my hair color and styles have changed. I’m sure there’s a connection somehow. I do have shoes that are more sensible and conservative than others the same way my hair has been conservative and then totally not conservative. Sometimes you just have to shake things up.
Menay O; mom to 4, Christian and thrift shopper on the side... 