Time, why you punish me?

I love my feet. Probably more than someone should love their own feet.  They are the perfect shape and proportion.  A perfect nail for each perfectly shaped toe.  The love extends so deeply because it's the only part of my body that I feel this way, or anywhere close.

My beautiful feet are somewhat rare in my house and extended family.  My family has a strong history of bunions.  Most of my aunts on my mom's side suffer from them.  And over the years I've seen it destroy my mom's feet.

Bunions, other than hereditary, are caused in part from the shoes you wear, namely tight and pointy shoes.  Which I avoid.  LIKE THE PLAGUE.


So imagine my complete and utter distress when I realized my feet were changing.

It happened one night last year.  I believe it was around my birthday, which probably set off the quarterlife crisis.   We were watching TV and out of the corner of my eye I noticed my foot looked different.  There was a bit of rounding on the side past my big toe. 

No.  It can't be.  I had been so careful, but life had caught up with me.  My stupid genes (no offense, Mom & Dad) had screwed me over once again.

Because there it was, the start of a bunion.  And then came the tears.  Silently they flowed for probably two hours.  Once or twice my mom looked over and finally confirmed it.

"What's wrong, why are you crying?"

My feet.  .... bunions.

With an inspection, she said the absolute wrong thing to comfort me.  She confirmed I had them.

More tears.

Then the rest of the night  I was inconsolable as she wondered out loud what the big deal was and why I was so upset.  And then said it was because of toe cracking.  Wondrous, airy, magnificent toe cracking.

My feet, my beatiful feet.  Destroyed.  Gone.

Later that summer my aunt Joannie said they weren't very noticeable and maybe if I stayed with sensible shoes it wouldn't develop until years later.  That made me feel better.  THAT'S what Mom should have said.

This year, my toes started tingling, aching and burning at night.  Dammit.

Well after three days I went to the store and bought everything I could find that was a toe spacer or cushion.  Then I switched to flats. FLATS.

Goodbye couple extra inches; Hello yes I'm really this short.

After two weeks of constant babying my feet felt normal again.  Is it mostly in my head?  Perhaps.  Are my feet still straight and mostly bump free?  Thankfully, yes.

Sadly though, I'm nowhere as carefree as I was a little over a year ago.