I have plantar fasciitis, and it really sucks. I wake up in the morning and can barely maneuver steps to the bathroom as I hobble out of bed. I had a cortisone shot about a month ago, and it did nothing. So now, I am in between doctors’ appointments and am accepting a fate of a sad reality….a life of boring nurse-like shoes or hippy Birkenstocks.
My mother, in all her wisdom, is always my voice of reason. She sent me on my way to Tucson’s local comfort shoe store, Allan’s Shoe House. “You need to take care of your feet,” she urged, “because after all, you only have two of them.”
So off I went for far more than an afternoon of shoe shopping. An hour at Allan’s is a shoe education. My feet were precisely measured on a funky infrared electronic device, and with scores of amazing styles in front of me, the shoe salesman informed me, “Don’t even look, because someone with planter fasciitis can’t wear most of them.”
I was only permitted to try on the shoes with either naturally built in arch supports or shoes where the inserts were not glued in and could be taken out so I can slip in my own arch support inserts. It ruled out the vast majority of shoes in the store.
I was skeptical, but when I slipped on the shoes he was recommending, I got it. They truly did feel better than anything I had ever previously owned.
I guess I have graciously accepted the fact that shoes are for far more than cute fashion trends. This officially makes me an old lady, but oh well…whatever!
Today, my song of the day is Paul Simon’s “Diamonds On the Soles of Her Shoes,” because my shoes will now be looked at in the same vein as precious stones…highly valuable and only the best on the market. I, for sure, am wearing “diamonds on the soles of my shoes.”
