My foray into the supposed golden years of my life is forcing me out of my comfort zone in a myriad of ways, and it doesn’t always feel good. As if looking in the mirror every morning isn’t enough of a reminder that time is marching on, other parts of my body occasionally signal that things just aren’t what they used to be. Case in point: my feet.

It began rather abruptly a little more than four years ago when I was vacationing in Gatlinburg. While walking up the stairs to our condo, a sudden, excruciating pain literally brought me to my knees. The pain  eventually passed, but walking was so uncomfortable. As though sent from heaven above, an orthotics shop happened to be housed on Gatlinburg’s main strip, alongside the typical tourist traps one usually sees, and I was fitted for a pair. They made all the difference in the world and, therefore, wearing them was easy to accept, particularly since the orthotics were virtually unnoticeable.

Since then I’ve had to consider these orthotics whenever I need to shop for shoes, and I’ve accepted it as a part of getting older. What I’m having a difficult time accepting, though, is that my feet are growing well past the point of coinciding with my short/petite frame. To put it in perspective, I am less than five feet tall, and I wear and I currently wear a size 8 shoe. I feel like the clown in a circus wearing those oversized, red shoes.

Throughout my adult life, I’ve been aware that my feet are growing; indeed, they grew half a size with the birth of each of my two children (something that I noticed, researched, and found to be ‘normal.’) I really thought that it would plateau somewhere around the 7-7.5 mark. But apparently that is not the case; in fact, it’s only going to get worse.

The fact is that the tendons and ligaments in our feet lose their elasticity over time and don’t hold the bones and ligaments as neatly as they used to. That, combined with gravity and the thinning of the fat pads that cushion the bottoms, contributes to the flattening of our feet, necessitating larger shoes. Furthermore, the pattern will continues throughout one’s life, increasing one’s foot size every ten years by half a size. That means my shoe can potentially skyrocket to a size 9 by the time I’m 80.

All of this is to say I’m replacing my shoes, one pair at a time. It’s hardly an effort, since I’ve always had a penchant for shoes and shopping for them online is opening my eyes to the number of companies specializing in comfort without sacrificing style. The journey through the golden years continues, one step at a time.