When you have siblings, it’s almost a need to try to find ways to differentiate yourself from your kin. I have two older sisters, and one younger, and I was always compared to them. On top of that, people always made me feel less, because in a family of lighter toned sisters, I was the only dark one and the shortest. So, I was thrown into the “cousin” category for strangers and acquaintances whenever they saw us together (“Why is your cousin always with y’all?”).
But, I love my sisters, and I love my dark skin, so it was more so a small annoyance than a life changing complex. However, I still wanted to one-up them on something! That day came when we went shoe shopping when I was in about fifth or sixth grade.
Eastlands were the shoes to get that time, and while we all got pretty much the same shoe, but with different tones to them, I was happy when I realized that my feet were bigger than everyone’s (including my mother’s).
The next day at school I puffed my chest out and proudly proclaimed my 7.5 sized foot.
After that, I don’t think I really thought about my feet that much. They were there, they helped me to move, march (I was in marching band in high school), and I always had really cute shoes.
It wasn’t until my sophomore year of college, when I was at my job at the Main Stacks library that I thought about them again. I was getting an order of books when a woman who was in the elevator with me started yelling while pointing at my feet. I was scared that there was some type of bug or rodent around my feet, so I started screaming as well, while trying to climb on top of the assistance bar.
After asking asking/yelling: “What?! What’s wrong?!” She finally answered.
“It’s your feet! They’re so huge!”
By that time my feet were a healthy 9.5, and it caught me off guard because that day I was wearing a cute pair of knock off Pumas (the Bakers’ kind) that were actually a size 8. So to think that if I took the shoe off, and for my feet to unfold like a rewound version of the Wicked Witch of the East’s feet under Dorthy’s house, how would she react then?
I thought I could mentally recover, but after we got back to the main floor, she brought one of her friends to the checkout counter and asked me to show her friend the size of my feet.
At that moment I felt incredibly insecure. How could something that I felt so proud about a few years ago, bring so much shame in a single elevator ride? But it did. I began mentally dissecting what was wrong with my feet. Was it the fact that I’m really short, so my feet stick out like boats in front of me? Was it the style of shoes I chose? Were the shoes too audacious, and brought too much attention to them?
I’d never obsessed about my feet more than I did in those days. They were big, they were Flintstone-ish, but at the end of the day they were mine, and that’s what I had to come to terms with.
How could I hate something that literally brought me to where I am now? That helped me run, jump double dutch, dance, and walk to where ever I wanted to go? How could I dissect something that was so stable, was my literal foundation, and allowed me to maneuver my path in life?
I couldn’t. My long feet helped make me who I am, not just physically, but mentally. They were the first inclination to me that I could stand out from my sisters, and that I could find something of my own to be proud of.
They were a source of multiple adventures, strength, and had an uncanny appearance to baked potatoes when I was pregnant. I love these big suckers!
So to you, dear readers, in a time where we obsess over our appearances, and focus on innocuous flaws, I encourage you to love yourself how you are. If you do decide to change your perceived flaw, do it under the name of improvement, not the guise of misplaced vanity. Also, don’t allow someone else to usher shame into something that you were so proud of before. You never know if your “flaw” could be the one thing that could put you a foot above the rest.
Kendra Koger likes to tap dance her size 9.5 feet over to her twitter @kkoger.
