I Retired My Combat Boots. Then I Bought Heels I Can't Walk In.

The heels are burgundy suede, with a heel roughly the height and width of a number two pencil. They live in a closet next to a pair of boots I have not worn in a long time but cannot bring myself to throw away. The boots and the heels do not speak to each other. I think they know.

I bought the heels not long after I got out. I was standing in a department store, still walking like I was late for formation, and there they were on a little pedestal under a spotlight. They looked ridiculous. They looked wonderful. They cost more than I want to say in print.

I did not buy the heels because I needed them. I bought them because nobody could tell me not to.

The uniform problem

When you serve, a lot of decisions are made for you. What you wear, how you wear it, how long your hair can be, which earrings are acceptable and which ones will get you a talking-to from someone with more stripes and fewer opinions about fashion. You get used to it. You even get good at it. There is a strange comfort in a closet where everything matches because it has to.

Then you get out, and suddenly the closet is a blank page. It sounds freeing. Mostly it was paralyzing. I spent my first months as a civilian wearing what I privately called "the transition uniform": dark jeans, a plain top and sensible shoes. It was basically the same uniform, just with less starch.

The heels were a small act of rebellion against that. A way of telling myself that the woman who wore boots was still here, but she was also allowed to be someone who owned impractical shoes.

The regret part

I will be honest. I have worn them three times.

I did not buy the heels because I needed them. I bought them because nobody could tell me not to.

The first time, I made it about two hours at a dinner before I quietly slipped them off under the table. The second time, I misjudged a gravel parking lot and nearly reenacted a very bad day on the obstacle course. The third time, I wore them for twenty minutes, mostly to prove to myself I still could.

For a while I felt foolish about that. All that money for shoes I could barely stand in. But I have come around to a different view. The heels were never really about walking. They were about trying something that had nothing to do with who I used to be, and finding out that it was okay if it did not quite fit.

That is most of reinvention, if you ask me. You try on new things. Some fit. Some give you blisters. A few you keep in the closet anyway because they remind you that you were brave enough to try.

The blisters were worth it

Every woman I know who has left the military has some version of the heels. For one friend it was dyeing her hair a color the regs would never allow. For another it was a tattoo, a motorcycle or a pottery class she was terrible at and loved anyway. For some it is a whole new career, or going back to school with classmates half her age, or simply sleeping past 0500 without guilt.

Not all of it works out. That is fine. The point was never to get every new thing right on the first try. The point was to remember that we get to choose now.

Where the boots fit

I still have the boots, and I am keeping them. They earned their spot. They carried me through a lot of long days, a lot of mud and a lot of standing around waiting for someone to tell us what was next.

The heels have earned their spot, too, in a different way. They carried me exactly nowhere, very uncomfortably, and taught me something anyway.

Some days I am the boots. Some days I am the heels. Most days, if I am honest, I am the comfortable sneakers by the door. But I like knowing all three are in the closet, and that the woman who owns them gets to decide which ones to wear.

Off duty. On my terms. Blisters included.