The Hidden Meaning of Red Stilettos

i. The View from Red Stilettos

Imagine me at twenty-six. On the bright side of life, thriving after surviving a near-fatal disease—the same one that took my grandfather when he was thirty-six. I had my fair share of wins: a career as a Tom Ford beauty consultant, improving salaries, improving life, as it goes.

I swapped my tiny apartment with moldy wallpaper in the suburbs of Budapest for a sunlit condo in the center. Weekend shopping trips were mandatory in my red stilettos, compressing my toes with every step, ripped skinny jeans showing my knee tattoos, and an old Iron Maiden t-shirt that secretly signaled to every middle-aged white man that he could talk to me without saying 'hi'.

You can imagine me standing on the peak of my red stilettos: radiant and ordinary. Dreaming of life continuing indefinitely, with the future addition of a kind man, a house with white picket fence, a dog, maybe babies. Not because I wanted any of that, but because it was the next logical step.

For this, I blame my family. They taught me, since I was a tiny little girl, that obedience was the only way to be loved. If I could be loved, I could find a husband; if I found a husband, he should be rich; then I could have a good life, and finally give birth to babies so my existence would gain meaning.

And I believed them. I spent more than half my life proving my worth. When the boyfriend arrived with the promise of a white picket fence, a wall-sized TV, and annual two-week vacations in the tropics, I tried to please life with superhuman effort. Of course, I nearly died proving myself.

According to Louise Hay, my introduction to the self-help movement, kidney disease carries the spiritual meaning of criticism, disappointment, failure, and shame. Whether you believe it or not, it sounds aligned with that place where you’re imagining me. If you can’t see it, try harder. I only have 3000 characters to explain.

ii. Blood Does Not Show on Red Leather

The problem might not have started with the red stilettos, but it certainly peaked in them while I marched into a life I never wanted, yet forced myself to want anyway, with their monotone click-cluck-clock as my anthem. The perfect design, the familiar discomfort, and an occasional drop of blood perfectly depict my life at the time. But hey—the shoes were red. No one would notice a drop of blood. Or two.

That was my motto. And I prayed it would be true.

But the truth is, I never liked these stilettos. They cost a whole month’s salary, and I only bought them because my favorite YouTuber had them too, and everyone told me to dress for the life I want, not the one I have. I was too focused on controlling my face, hiding the pain behind a fake smile, to notice how the blood slowly pooled around me, leaving a trail wherever I went.

I was so busy hiding my pain that I didn’t notice what was happening around me. Until one day, I ended up in the hospital after a severe panic attack — the day after my engagement, I learned my boyfriend had been cheating since day one, scamming me for money for years, gaslighting me until I questioned my own sanity. The only thing I was sure of was the red heels on my feet. It was only because of the pain.

I learned later from a disinterested nurse that it’s a common reaction, especially when your ex is still following you everywhere. A week later, my kidneys shut down again. I was driven to the same hospital, where they made me lie on a distressed mattress for days in nothing but my t-shirt and the same underwear. I had no one left to bring me clean ones, but I didn't care. I enjoyed being barefoot, wiggling my toes under my sterile blanket.

I was assigned a psychologist who worked with me for a year to rewire my brain, trying to help me distinguish between my actual memories and my imagination. She also clarified something you might already know: if I wanted to live, I had to make drastic changes.

iii. The Spirituality of Bare Feet

The first drastic change was being honest. It was just as painful as walking downhill in stilettos on hot summer days, when my feet sweat under the leather, sliding forward, compressing my toes into a small triangle, the heel cutting into my Achilles.

It wasn't that I've never been honest. It was that I had never been honest with myself. Questions like "what do you like?" sent me into mental spirals for days. Even something as simple as what would feel good right now was unanswerable. I was hyper-focused on serving others’ needs; I was almost non-existent to myself.

The first thing I honestly named to my therapist was trivial. And I felt embarrassed admitting it: I enjoyed being barefoot. I loved the feeling of my toes spreading on wooden floorboards, sun-warmed tiles, or cold marble. I liked the sound of my skin against the pavement, even when it got dirty. The dirtier my feet became, the more I enjoyed it. Once I even slept like that, with ash-black, unwashed feet.

Eventually, I realized I wanted to go somewhere far, barefoot all the way, and never come back. As a child, I used to spend hours hunched over a giant Reader’s Digest atlas, planning trips around the world. I didn’t know about visas or work permits or language barriers — and I wouldn’t have cared. I was depressed and desperate for something that made me feel alive.

After a year of therapy, saying I didn’t like Starbucks drinks (except their pumpkin spice latte) became easy. I could name more things I liked. Then things I wanted. Then I sold my belongings, left my job and apartment, and went for a long walk. Despite my therapist's warning that it might be too much at once, I shaved my head and walked for 39 days (not all the way) barefoot following an ancient pilgrimage route in the Spanish mountains, hoping to find myself. Or something that resembled me.

iv. Green Is Supposed to Symbolize Rebirth

After Spain, I stopped wearing red. Red belonged to women who wanted to be noticed. I wanted to disappear instead.

I started wearing green.

When I wasn’t walking barefoot, I wore green hiking boots—comfortable, supportive even on downhills. I didn’t know where I was going, but I burned all bridges behind me, just in case I changed my mind. Red flames licked my footprints, making sure there was no turning back.

But I didn't need to turn back. I walked most days alone, until halfway through, a homeless-looking man appeared beside me and insisted on walking together. I didn’t want him to walk with me, but I also didn’t want him not to. So I let him.

He turned out to be a millionaire who owned a global tree planting company, though he reminded me more of the caffeinated squirrel from Over the Hedge than a businessman.

By the end of the road, everything turned green, and I didn’t think much about what came next: I was sent to Scotland to plant trees. The green hiking boots came in handy.

v. Men Who Spoke of Freedom

The millionaire liked to talk about simplicity while we planted in rain that leaked through our gloves, waterproofs, and boots. He spoke of freedom the way priests speak of heaven: confidently, as if none of us would ever come back to verify it.

And I loved it. The exhaustion felt holy. It was a different kind of pain I learned to enjoy. Proof that I had escaped the cage I built for myself— the one I used to call my life.

My body felt broken, but my spirit felt alive. I stopped wearing makeup and began treating my visible ribs and permanent fatigue like moral achievements.

I was out doing things nobody imagined I could do. I became someone nobody imagined I could become. I was free. Or at least exhausted enough to think so.

I moved from country to country until the company went bankrupt. So I moved to another one.

vi. Green Boots with Red Shoelaces

Regardless of which side of the cage you are on, a cage still exists. Forestry is just a business too, and the longer I worked in it, the more I saw how it actually worked.

How much company owners make from green-washing projects like carbon offsetting. How much plastic is involved and no one cares. How many hours we give to something that earns well but sends millions upward to those who just take. And take. And take even more.

It was never about the trees or the planet or the people— only how much could be squeezed out of people, where workers could be cut while still pretending to care.

I got sick and tired. It wasn’t freedom. It was modern-day slavery and hidden employment—without its safety and benefits—disguised as freedom, easy money, Eco-consciousness, and purpose. Even as self-employed, contractors still treated me like I belonged to them, yelling when I didn’t push past my limits, calling me lazy for choosing my health over a few extra euros a day. (Who wants their kidneys to fail in the middle of a forest with no signal?)

So naturally, I came to the only reasonable conclusion: employment itself was the problem.

vii. A Millionaire’s Voice in My Head

I decided it was time to take life into my own hands again. I started a business with my partner. This time, we worked directly with the main contractors—no more agencies cutting prices for thirty minutes of paperwork. But finally: freedom.

I bought myself new, shiny hiking boots for the occasion. Green with red laces.

Within a few months I became that caffeinated squirrel working ten/twelve-hour days, making calls between tasks, chasing equipment, filing invoices at 2 a.m., only to collapse into bed with feverish exhaustion, reserving energy only for cooking and showering, dreaming of my author life and how good it would feel when finally…

At some point I realized that the millionaire might have stopped yelling through the phone, but his voice had migrated into my own head.

viii. Red Heels in a Cardboard Box

French bureaucracy wasn't on our side either. After two years, we were still waiting for an important license that would allow us to take contracts from everyone. Without it, we kept losing work—and money. The first year, I only worked six months. We had no choice but to accept underpaid jobs others avoided.

We knew it wasn’t sustainable.

We considered our options: Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the UK. All had developed tree planting industries, but none would grant me a visa for short seasonal work, or it would cost too much to be worth it. So we looked within the EU and found an opportunity in Norway.

The only problem: I had to be employed again. The idea alone gave me shivers. But we made a deal: seasonal employment for three months.

It all sounded fine until we arrived. The job was on remote sites where we had to carry the trees by hand, box by box, hundreds of meters uphill through the forest with no paths. At least my boots were comfortable. The work was underpaid, though not as brutal as in France, and I had enough energy left in the evenings to write. I couldn’t sleep anyway—the sun barely set, and my body felt permanently stuck, feeling like it was 5 p.m.

The boss told me to sleep on-site so I could work more, since I didn’t have children I should take advantage of that while I still can (like it's inevitable that I will end up being a mother). He also didn’t like that we decided not to work Saturdays. I expected him to yell with us, but he didn’t.

Which felt very strange at first.

I take that as a good omen. Actually, that's the only good thing I can think of, standing in our provided apartment, barefoot on laminated floors probably here from the ‘70s, staring at strange black stains on the yellowed wallpaper, a hole in the bathroom floor and the leaking water from the broken toilet. I wonder how someone managed to punch a twenty-centimeter hole into the kitchen furniture as well.

And then I think of the red stilettos I left at my parents’ house, still in their cardboard box, waiting patiently for me to put them on again. Like they knew I’d come back for them eventually. I always wondered why I never sold them with everything else.