They're like candy for so many women. They make your ass look fantastic, they give you a height boost with a dollop of intimidation and, if they have that beautiful red sole, they're such a status symbol. High heels are a girl's best friend. As one of my friends recently wrote on her blog, there's nothing better to boost your sagging confidence than donning an extra high, extra sexy pair as you step out the door.
Unless you're like me, in which case you'll do everything you can to not wear high heels. Because high heels terrify me.
When I was still mini-See and plodding along in High School, I somehow managed to get the reputation (from a lovely group of young women) that I was "elitist." How, exactly, a 16-year-old girl can present herself as elitist when she is neither popular nor cool is somewhat beyond me. But we'll just run with that idea.
For someone who hated being weird or different, especially then, "elitist" as an epithet was tough to hear. It was one of those annoying character observations that never seemed to leave my brain. Every new friend I met, every new activity I joined, I wondered if I was giving off that high-falutin' attitude. So I spent college learning how to converse and how to be charming when I met someone; all in attempts to dampen this part of myself which I couldn't even see. I didn't want to make anyone feel small or like an outsider. I'd felt that enough in my life. Instead, I actively worked against the single word that I felt defined me, and tried my damnedest to un-learn my elitism.
What ended up happening was an utter and complete under-performance in the clothes department.
Shirts where cleavage would be exposed? Sorry, lads. If there was even a hint of breasts, a well-placed tank top would hide any lady-mounds from view. (In my four years at college, I would like to say that I perfected the double layered tank-top look). Dresses and bang-on heels that made me look like freaking Aphrodite rising from the sea? Pass. Anything that involved flash, pizazz or "personality" were tossed out as being too provocative and too inflammatory. If I ventured into any of those zones, I knew, I just knew I'd come off as elitist. The idea was to blend in, and blend in well. Sadly, that attitude led to far too many graphic t-shirts from Abercrombie and decent fitting jeans from American Eagle.
But by the time I'd hit my senior year of college, fresh off a semester of traveling and learning about fashion in Europe, I decided to give those girls the finger. That ridiculous statement was still ringing in the back of my head. Except at 21 I was beginning to realize that there are some intrinsic parts of yourself you can't change -- however, you sure as hell can try and own them. So I took to wearing bright pink heels and donning a few dresses. I even started to wear shirts that weren't made by Abercrombie. That lasted a year.
And then I went back to San Francisco, where time and time again I would find that flaunting anything felt like the complete opposite of the culture. SF is a city of "un-effort." (This nytimes article explains it rather well.) Hipsters rule with thread-bare, hole-ridden shirts or hippies in birkenstocks and North Face jackets. The goal is to look like you rolled out of bed and rolled into your clothes for the day, all of which are lying in a pile a few feet from your bed. Yet again, I was passing on clothes that had any attitude or pizazz because, particularly in SF, my new-found East Coast sensibilities were making me out to be a Snob. Plus the topography of the city (hills at every turn to make your quads burn something fierce) made it somewhat impossible to wear heels.
So by the time I came to New York I'd forgotten how to love heels and how to embrace my elitism. This city, more than most, has superiority in its veins and in every one of its people. Everyone thinks they're worth something big, something awesome, and they're willing to fight tooth and nail against a sea of unrepentant assholes to prove that. You may end up here on a whim, but you'll have to fight and defend yourself to stake a claim. In the women, the higher the heel, the thinner the stiletto, the more people you know they took down to get there. They've earned each inch of those shoes. Make no mistake, the Jimmy-Choo-wearing-bitches run this town (at least in my media related world) and they can ruin you.
So, me and heels now have a touchy relationship. I own them, oh so many of them because I aspire to wear them. I want to run the parts of my city, I want to be the Editor at the top calling the shots.
But dressing the part, wearing those heels, that means something huge to me. Those heels say to me, and to everyone in my office (small office), that I will not be conquered. They scream intimidation, ownership and elitism. Really, they're like telling a guy "I'm too good for you" right before you knee him in the balls and run off with his colleague who makes more, dresses better and has a bigger penis. Perhaps not that bad, but they definitely make me feel more elitist and more superior that I have ever been willing to let myself be.
I'm having a tough time owning that. I want it, that success, that queen of the mountain feeling. But I don't know if I have what it takes to get there. I was the girl who didn't want to make anyone feel left behind or like an outsider. Can I become the girl that's not afraid to abandon people and even trample everyone to get what I want? Maybe I don't have to destroy all these parts of myself in the process, but doesn't it sure as hell feel that way once you slip on those shoes? That, dear friends, is why I haven't been able to pull on my Stuart Weitzman platform heels in camel. Because when I do, it might mean that the girl I tried to un-be for years, that elitist bitch, has always been there just waiting to come out. And wouldn't it be terrible if those high school girls were right?
Today's fear: Lose-your-soul-to-your-ambition-phobia
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