F*ck It

It was only a couple of years ago when I let go of the thing I found most awkward about my body: my height. To "mask" this trait, I always wore flat shoes, even at my fancy office job, and the highest shoe I owned were my Frye cowgirl boots. I am six feet tall when I am barefoot and slouching.

I fully realize that feeling awkward about one's vertical abundance is a privilege, compared to the body issues of others. I have yet to meet one person who isn't in one way or another wrestling with the bundle of genetics that were handed to them at birth.

I credit my getting over my height issue to a sassy, tall co-worker named Audra as we bonded over pages of shoes in Vogue during lunch. Audra, at 5'10," wore high heels and did not care. Her mindset was, I'm already freakishly tall, so why not flaunt it?

One summer day in 2006, while perusing the shoe section of Nordstrom rack, I came across a pair of mint green Jimmy Choos that were 75% off their original price. I held them in my hands. They were my size, my color, expertly made, and just plain lovely. They also had a 90mm heel. And the two words that came to my mind like a bolt of lightning, a mind with an almost infinite vocabulary, were:

Fuck it.

I got those shoes and never looked back. I still have them, and they have spawned a thousand fawnings over other high heeled creations. Very few of them have I actually purchased, but heel height is no longer a factor in determining whether or not I should make them mine. Sometimes you have to let things go. If I'm already kind of a freak and stick out like a sore thumb, what's point in trying to hide it? Life is too short. Pun intended.

The point of that is to say, me oh my, these YSL wedges are looking prettier by the day. What's an extra four inches between friends?