My Body: Feet First

I honestly don't remember what inspired this. But I was in bed the other night, thinking about how I should do this blog. And it turned into a series of blogs. It started with my feet, I know that much. I was thinking I should write about my feet, which are not a favorite body part of mine. I was composing an Ode to my feet in bed. I moved on and thought I should cover all the main body parts (I'll skip the innards) from the feet to my head. So here we go!

Feet. Feet were meant to be ugly. My feet are complicated. I have a deformed toe on each foot (really, I do). I have tiny little toe nails that are impossible to paint. I have an odd space between the big toe and the next toe, and then the rest are all crammed together. I have a narrow heel, slightly high instep, and wide toe box. I have no arch. Zero. Nada. Zilch. That makes me pronate (feet roll in) quite a bit. Why doesn't my browser recognize pronate as a word? 

Shoes are a whole other story. I remember as a kid having the shoe guy glue foam arch supports in my shoes. They were never comfortable. I grew up knowing that the cheap flat shoes that I loved were "bad" for my flat feet. As I got older I would go through stages of cheap shoes, to nice shoes with good arch support, back to cheap shoes.

When J and I started doing the minimal shoe thing, I told my Mom about it, and she wasn't surprised. She said she couldn't keep shoes on me since I was born. I do know I've always loved being barefoot. Never been a big fan of socks. So switching to as little shoe as possible wasn't a big stretch for me. Ha.

My feet are not pretty. I never paint my toes. Well, so rarely it's not even annual. I have horrid callouses. I mean horrid. And now I have eczema on my feet. It started on fingers, and spread to my toes. Then my face. I guess that's another post.

Anywho! Feet! Yes feet. I have never in my life ever had a pedicure. Well, not a real pedicure. Well, not from a professional. I've had pedicures from my best friend and from her nieces. In fact, for years, I hid my feet.

It's my deformity. Yes it is a deformity. It didn't form correctly, so it is deformed. I've had doctors look at it. It doesn't cause pain, doesn't throw me off balance, doesn't really do anything at all. One doc said it's probably just a tendon that didn't grow with the others or is pulled taut for some reason. My midget toes, as I call them, barely have a toe nail. The nail bed is pretty much nonexistent. It has all the knuckles, but they're like piled on top of each other. I can't wear shoes that are cut low over the toes because they rub on the midgets, and while they don't seem to have a lot of feeling the rest of the time, you put a shoe seam on them and they scream. Vibram 5 Fingers? Oh hell no!

People always have to ask about it. I don't mind little kids asking. They just kinda look at it funny and then look at me. It's simple. Adults want to know if I have an extra toe, or if I'm missing a toe (I never understand that one). And how did it happen? And why? And I don't know? How could I not know? Was it always like that? When did it happen?

I'd rather you just look, think "how odd" and move on. Please and thank you.

Of course, my feet have their pluses. I know how to make it look like I have a bit of an arch. I can stand on one foot, either foot, and I'm getting better at it with the Yoga classes. I was always pretty good at standing for long amounts of time.

I walk a lot, including the Bataan. I can run now, and just ran over a mountain. I am picky about my shoes again, but in a different way. I still love being barefoot and hate socks. That also means I get runner toe sometimes, but I already believe feet were meant to be ugly, so yeah. My feet have really been taking me places lately. And Rembrandt loves them. Of course, he loves all feet, but hey, he loves me.

OMG I got so lost in this post. First Rembrandt wanted some snuggles. Then Duke tried to crawl on my laptop and hit the delete key. Then a friend started texting with gmail trouble. Oh, and I got a phone call from a weird number with no answer, and a google search said it tends to be a scammer anyway. Dog wanted out, then cat wanted out, now both want in. BRB.

I'll finish with a picture, so you can see my weird feet. I promise I will not do pictures for every body part. Just the PG ones. Then again, I could just make sure the body part is clothed. I guess that would make it PG.

My tootsies and tattoo #1
 And just for your viewing pleasure, interruption first.
the flash makes my eyes weird, mommy
I hope people read the whole post just for this final photo. It's worth it.

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