My Daughter thinks I should up my shoe game.

Argh

I have reached the magical age where I tell my Mother the things that she needs to do, and I send her reminders AND my daughter tells me all the things that are wrong with my personal style. Who said your late fifties weren’t fun?!

I recently went to a wedding. As I had tossed all my dressy shoes out early in pandemic (I decided that heels were the devil) I needed to purchase a pair of shoes that looked nice with my fun, party dress, but also treated my feet like the ladies that they are. So I bought a low heel shoe with some sparkle on top. Cute and practical and good for an evening out. I loved them. I showed them to my daughter via Zoom. She was less than impressed. Way less…

“How could you wear those shoes?” she asked

“I put them on my feet, strap the buckle and I walk” I replied.

She was not amused.

“Why are you making yourself old?” she asked.

I took a beat and thought about it. Does buying low heeled shoes signify getting old? Does it mean I no longer care how I appear to others? Does it mean that I am giving up?

Maybe.

Maybe.

No.

I guess that the beauty of aging is realizing what is important to the individual. Yes, perhaps buying lower heels as I age signifies that my feet are not quite as springy as they used to be. I have some tendon issues that make angling my foot in a heel very tenuous. It also makes wearing flip flops a problem because I can’t really “grip” with my toes without causing pain. With age comes the realization that I don’t have to be put fashion first.

I also care about the way I look. I really wanted my shoes to match the look of my dress. I was wearing a cocktail dress, and I I wanted cocktail shoes…I wanted something that was a little fancier than my everyday kicks. However…I don’t care what others think of my look. If people mock me due to my pretty yet sensible shoes, so be it.

Of course, wearing low heeled shoes does not mean that I am old. It just means that I don’t wear high heeled shoes. Period. One does not correlate to the other.

We all change as we age. We toss some things out as we bring others in. It’s neither good nor bad: it’s just learning who we are and what makes us happy. So cheers to the upside of aging- figuring out who we are and liking it.

87 thoughts on “Another Blog About Shoes”

  3. Loved this post! I feel EXACTLY the same way It is refreshing…if you could see my wardrobe… BTW, I also love that you and your daughter have a relationship like you do, where you can have these kind of conversations. Also refreshing.

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  4. Your style is yours. ❤
    It has nothing to do with age.
    I wore Vans with my wedding dress and my mom and aunt lost their minds. My sons new girlfriend showed up to a family wedding in the cutest little black dress…and Converse. I love her.

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  5. Meh. I love heels, how they look, yada yada but not for a long time because they really aren’t comfortable no matter what the style. But I love the look. It’s a struggle.

    Medium heels are not a look that’s popular around here but really should be. What’s the problem? Something between flat and high…?

    We should start a trend.

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    1. I think some think that sexiness or attractiveness equate to clothes and shoes. They don’t. Sexiness and attractiveness is attitude and confidence. I can’t be confident if my feet hurt

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  7. i wear a lot of kitten heels – those look delicate and sweet and are still relatively comfortable – at least I think so. I also started buying shoes with chunkier heels – they were in fashion before the pandemic – not sure what’s in style now!

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  8. I have found as I get older my son and daughter have somehow found their voices about what I should do and when I should do them. It’s irritating but I go along, sometimes, as they mean well.

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  9. Nothing worse than wearing uncomfortable shoes just for the look. I bought just the “right” shoe for my daughters wedding and by the reception my feet were in so much pain, I took them off and went barefoot! So people stared.. I didn’t care. Never wore the shoes again.

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  11. A wore heels every day of my professional life. The nice thing about aging is coming to the realization we can choose and feel good about our choices.

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  17. I can’t say that I’ve ever worn high heels, so take this with a grain of salt, but I can’t imagine anybody choosing them over low-heeled shoes. High heels just LOOK uncomfortable as hell.

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  18. Yes, yes, yes! The great thing about being older is we can do what we want. I don’t wear high heels anymore and my feet are much happier. I’m not wearing the orthopedic shoes my grandmother wore, yet! That said, I’m also not giving up on my youth, just those crazy shoes!

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      5. OMG that would be awesome – I need a little she-shack. My all-male family may think I’m crazy if I put them on display in our living room, but it might be fun to try 😉

        Liked by 1 person

  19. I love, Love, LOVE the “[shoes that] treated my feet like the ladies that they are.” LOVE!!!

    Last time I wore high heel shoes for my sister’s wedding. Didn’t do that even for mine. Still felt pretty 😀

    Maybe it’s a balance between ceding to society’s current concept of beauty (remember those black teeth that were considered beautiful?…) and the wisdom we acquire (sometimes with age?)?

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  20. I last wore heels in the early 80s. I was young. It was the fashion. I fell of them dancing in a discotheque. There was a snapping sound and I ended up at the doctor with torn ligaments.

    I don’t know why, in the 21st century, women wear heels. They aren’t good for you and they look un-natural. You have not grown old, you have gained wisdom. You have not lost your youth, just sore feet.

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  23. Forget the heels. I rarely wear them. I wear kitten heels or wedges or something less than 2 inches. I love today’s clunky heel because the shoe proportions are better. I refuse to own shoes that hurt my feet in any way!

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  25. I used to wear high heels to work every day, as recently as five years ago, even though I was on my feet all day, but they were Clarks and never over two inches, just enough to give me a bit of height and look a bit dressy. I don’t understand women, of any age, wearing those six inch stiletto heels, let alone walking in them. When you’re older, let’s face it, if you stumble and fall, if you have brittle bones like I do, you might break something!

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  27. That’s right! Just because we’re becoming a bit older doesn’t mean that we aren’t still young at heart. Our feet deserve to feel comfortable! Personally, I never wore high heels, even though I never grew to more than 5′ 3″. It just wasn’t me. Don’t get me wrong, I loved shoes and had a drawer full of them at my desk when I worked downtown (wore sneakers to and from the parking garage). Different colors to suit my style of the day.

    But there was something else that I gradually merged into doing after I turned 50, and that was to stop dying my hair. My choice, my hair. Now, 10 years later, I’ve gotten past the worst of the transitioning gray and brown colors and my hair is platinum, on its way to snowy white like my grandmother and father.

    It’s amazing how many people seem bothered by our personal choices when it has nothing to do with them. My friends and family seemed to think that I was too young at 50 to stop dying my hair. Sadly, I’d been dying my hair since my 30s as that’s when the gray first appeared. I was done with that when I turned 50.

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  28. This is one of the joys of aging! We can be ourselves and not have to try to look ravishingly gorgeous. If someone doesn’t like my hair or clothes or shoes, if they judge me based on these factors, then I don’t wnat them for friends! This is the time to be me! This is the time to enjoy my life. You are so right!!

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  29. Personally, I don’t judge anyone by their shoes (unless they fall off them, and then I do think they need to make better shoe choices….) High heels are terrible for feet, so I don’t think refusing to wear them is always a sign of aging. It’s simply a practical choice that women are free to make, or not!

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  30. Oh my, your daughter sounds like mine. Last week I got ready for a dinner out with friends and she asked me why I was wearing what I felt was a nice blouse. I asked her why and she said, “It’s for old people.” So many thoughts with this…should I not be dressing my age? Even if that’s considered “old”? Won’t I look more ridiculous trying to wear something 20 year olds wear? Why does she feel it’s her right to critique the way I dress, when I know darn well if I did it to her, she would be defensive. Is she trying to help me? Do I need help dressing? LOL Like I said, so many thoughts.

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  31. Your daughter’s not ready for you to get old. Understandably that’s scary for her, especially when you’ve been a huge and supportive part of her life. As for the shoes themselves, I’m confident in your good taste, and I totally agree about comfortable shoes – life is too short to be killing ourselves unless it gives us pleasure.

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  32. I’m rounding 50 myself. I own 275 pairs of shoes… of which I rotate between 5 pairs. I’ve always worn stilettos. The higher the heels the closer to God, right? Well my feet and my back thank me for NOT wearing them anymore. I’m a true fan of the kitten hell of better yet, the loafer flat. I don’t care who likes the look and who doesn’t. It’s about what my body needs at this stage of the game. I still wear Prada, YSL and Gucci to name a few.. but I’m content being completely comfy at this point in the game.
    Loved reading this!! Thank you ☺️🙏

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  33. What is the point to wearing shoes that hurt your feet? I was still wearing heels every single day until I retired. Then I got used to flats. And now on the last few occasions that I wore heels I was miserable. Plus the next day my back and hips were all out of alignment. I realized it was just.not worth it. So I ordered a pretty pair of black flats and blush- beige flats. Now I will wear either of those instead. Does it make me an old lady? Maybe. But honestly it’s not my age it’s my back. If heels hurt my feet or my back then it’s downright stupid to continue wearing them and torturing myself. I guarantee you nobody,( except maybe a foot fetish guy) gives a hoot what you wear on your feet. If my back didn’t hurt after wearing heels I’d still wear them. But it does. So while I miss having a long lean look from heels, it’s just not worth suffering. We gals need to forget about what others think and “To thine own self be true”.

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    1. You know I have an anecdote. A few months ago a friend stayed with us because we had to attend a wake and funeral. For the wake, our friend (guy) wore a pair of shoes that he couldn’t not walk in without pain, and he was barely walking…just standing. The next day he didn’t wear the shoes to the funeral. When he was getting ready to leave our house, I made a comment about how his shoes would be going to the donation pile. He responded….no…never…do you know how much these cost?….😆

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