What’s a woman to do when her orthopedist says she has ‘man feet?’ She walks proudly in the biggest shoes she can find.

“Ahhh, you have MAN feet,” the orthopedist says, as I kick off my shoes and move my gnarly dogs toward his hands. Mortified, I watch as he appraises their deformed toes and bulbous bunions. “Sooo,” he says, breathing in deeply, “how can I help you?”

If only he could.

To truly help me, he would have to make these gunboats, which fit only into men’s extra, extra-wide New Balance sneakers, slender enough to glide into any shoe, the classier, the better. An impossible order but what I need to feel beautiful, a goal that eludes me as I age.

Like many women, I acquired my notion of feminine beauty from my mother. As a child, I watched in awe as she dressed each morning, skillfully snapping the garters around the top edge of her stockings, curling and lacquering her lashes, smoothing green shadow across her eyelids, patting orange gloss onto her lips, pulling a cashmere sweater over her head without mussing her beauty parlor hairdo, and finally, stepping into her pointy toed high heel shoes.

This daily routine metamorphosed my oftentimes overweight, puffy-faced, housedress-wearing mom into a woman of beauty and elegance at a cost that I did not understand. Besides starving her short, round body into thinness, looking the way she did required her to cram her wide tootsies into pumps that, while too narrow, gave her the extra inches she needed to look slightly slimmer, justifying the excruciating pain they caused.

I knew nothing of that. All I knew was that I wanted to look just like her.

My fat feet would never let that happen, contrary to her promise that wearing saddle oxfords would eventually correct and even beautify them and allow me one day to wear any shoes I wanted. Her promise filled me with the magical hope I felt when Cinderella slipped her foot into the glass slipper.

Like fairy dust, however, the hope vanished whenever we visited Jack’s shoe store, which we did twice a year. Why Mom bothered to take me shoe shopping for back-to-school and camp shoes, when saddle oxfords were the only shoes that ever came wide enough to accommodate my feet, I never understood.

But she did, and although I knew deep down how every visit would end, I allowed myself the brief, irresistible intoxication of caressing penny loafers and patent leather Mary Janes, brightly colored canvas Keds® and flip-flop sandals, breathing in the brand-new-nes of unworn leather and the latex of balloons that closed every sale.

Jack knew how impossibly hard to fit my feet were, just as he knew my mother’s insistence on oxfords. Still, he was a softhearted grandfatherly salesman who, after watching me cruise the store, would slip into the stock room, and reappear balancing a tower of shoe boxes in his arms.

Just seeing those boxes made my heart pound. I could barely sit still as he opened each one, removed the white tissue paper stuffing from each shoe and guided — or forced — my wiggly toes into them. The shoes were almost always instantly too tight. Even if they went on easily at first, they’d pinch after I walked up and down the store aisles. Although I insisted that every pair felt fine, Jack could tell by the way I limped that they hurt. With every pair that he put away my heart sank. When he grabbed the last box, my fledgling hope would flutter, until I recognized the black and white, triple E width oxfords with their fat, black Thomas heels.

I loathed everything about these shoes, from their rounded white toes to the flat white laces that joined the two black sides. I hated their heavy supportive soles, thick and unbending like steel plates. It was hard enough being a chubby kid; but being chubby in black and white orthopedic oxfords was downright humiliating.

And so, I’d watch Jack slip each shoe onto my bobby-socked feet, lace them, and bid me to walk. “Now, don’t these feel better?” he’d ask, sharing a knowing nod with my mother. There was no denying it: the damn shoes always fit perfectly.

Wiping away my tears, Mom repeated her promise that orthopedic oxfords would save me from ever having to pry red, swollen, and blistered feet, from high heels, grimacing and wincing, as she did every evening. But her words fell flat. At that moment, my best comfort was lunch at my favorite diner, where I stuffed my pudgy self on a cheeseburger and chocolate malted.

Summer brought a minor reprieve. Although Mom forbade flimsy flip-flops and other popular summer sandals and sneakers, she did allow me orthopedic “sandal” shoes — made of white leather with a round toe and two t-straps that buckled across the semi-open front. These shoes also had the ugly Thomas heel but the eyelets that formed a floral pattern prettied them up a bit.

Mom kept me in orthopedic oxfords until I reached adolescence, when I grew defiant in my refusal to wear them. By then, I’d stopped wanting to emulate her. She was in the throes of menopause and battling weight gain, though still forcing her feet into high-fashion heels. Meanwhile I, having discovered starvation dieting, had found my own style in the fashion fads of seventies — hip hugger bell-bottoms and midriff tops, hot pants, and peasant dresses.

During those years and for decades afterward, my feet miraculously fit into the shoes of my dreams: penny loafers in middle school, flat strappy sandals, and sandals with thick cork heels in high school, stacked-heel boots in college, career woman pumps, and, during early motherhood, any other shoes that made it easy to chase two toddlers.

Perhaps Mom’s promise of saddle shoes correcting my feet came true or perhaps I outgrew my fat feet. Either way, between my anorexic-thin figure, showing off tight, skimpy clothes, and complimenting every outfit with any shoes I wanted, I liked the way I looked.

But my self-satisfaction was superficial. After all, as Mom did, I based my self-worth on the fragile markers of feminine beauty: weight and wardrobe, (shoes included), not recognizing the deeper, lasting value of self-acceptance.

It took the aftermath of menopause and the emergence of my gorilla feet to drive that lesson home.

Suddenly, shoes that had fit fine felt tight. At first, I blamed middle-age foot-spread. But on closer examination I saw that both of my big toes, which looked more like thumbs, were growing inward, crossing over my excessively long second toe whose middle knuckle permanently pointed skyward, and forcing the outward protrusion of each foot’s walnut-size bunion. Meanwhile, my descending toes had begun to curl and lay sideways like frying sausages.

My feet hadn’t just widened. They’d turned grotesque.

For a while, women’s extra wide sneakers accommodated them. When they no longer did, I moved to men’s sneakers — first simple wide widths, then double-wide, and now, extra-extra wide or 6E widths. Anchoring my petite frame, they make me look like a clown.

Unless I go barefoot, wear Birkenstocks or certain clogs, which prohibit long hikes in the woods with my dog, I have no other footwear choice. On some days, even my 6Es feel snug. What will I do when they no longer fit? Wear shoe boxes?

As the owner of two fake hips and other artificial parts, I refuse any more surgery, even to remove my bunions. Instead, I choose to accept the occasional pain and humiliation that come with these plates of meat. On some days I’m forlorn. On others, I’m just happy to be walking. Sometimes I even like the way I look, at least from the knees up.

My mother never allowed herself such grace. She experienced aging as her body’s betrayal. Until the day she died, she denied herself food, dyed her hair blonde, and doused herself in perfume and skin products. At least she hung up her high heels and surrendered to flat, open toe sandals, which she wore all year, often with socks. She never stopped torturing herself for losing her elegance, but at least she stopped torturing her feet.

Had she accepted — and forgiven — her aging self, she could have prevented so much suffering in her later years and been a lasting inspiration for me. At least her suffering taught me how not to live or age.

After examining my feet, the orthopedist explained that only rest would ease the excruciating pain of plantar fasciitis, which is why I’d come to him in the first place. “It will go away,” he said, removing them, one at a time, from his lap, then brushing off his trousers and washing his hands. Pulling on my socks, I vowed to find comfort in my own skin, and in my own shoes, even if they are made for men.