Category: Words

Never underestimate the power of a pair of shoes

Oh, short on money,
But long on time,
Slowly strolling in the sweet sunshine,
And I’m running late,
And I don’t need an excuse,
’cause I’m wearing my brand new shoes.
–Paolo Nutini/New Shoes

When I was a little girl, on of my favorite things in the whole world was going to the shoe store. I loved the whole process. The way the salesman fussed over measuring my feet so I felt grown up and important. Looking at all the shoes to find just the right pair. Running through the store in my new PF Flyers to make sure I really could run faster and jump higher. I always wore my new shoes out of the store, carrying the old ones in the shoebox.

It’s a bit of cliche’ to be an adult woman who loves shoes. Normally I don’t particularly like to be conventional, but in this case I don’t mind a bit. There’s something about a pair of shoes that can always cheer me up.

Especially if the shoes are red. I must have 20 or 30 pairs of red shoes. Blame it on Elvis Costello and his red shoe-loving angels.
I do think they keep me skewing more to the amused and less to the disgusted side of life. The shoes, not the angels.

Assuming a certain level of wearability (I am not someone who will wear shoes that hurt my feet) there is a certain magic to a beautiful shoe. The shoe doesn’t have to be fancy. Just beautiful for its purpose. A shoe goes everywhere with you. It doesn’t complain that you have put on weight. It doesn’t bitch because you drank too much at the tailgater. It just makes you look prettier. Keeps your feet warm in the snow. Makes you feel like a badass when you need to. Makes your legs look amazing. Dangles off your toes fetchingly when you’re reclining on a chaise lounge.

Shoes are the ultimate accessory.

They are almost as vital to me as black eyeliner and make me feel every bit as sexy.

I still wear my new shoes out of the store.
Every damn time.

Puzzled

Tiny pieces come to me every day
Still I wait
Things are falling into place
But so much time goes to waste
–Gotye/Puzzle With A Piece Missing

The human heart is a little bit like a puzzle for me. There’s a minimum amount of assembly required just to keep it beating. We all mostly have that part. Then there are extra pieces that you need for love, sex, friendship, romance. Faith. Hope. Trust. Most of us are missing some of the pieces. I think we are born with them all, but by the time we’re school age, we’ve already lost some of the pieces for trust and belief. Some of us have people who love us who can find the lost pieces and put them back into place.

Once the pieces are lost, it’s hard to find them again. Especially if the trust piece is gone. That piece takes a lot of others with it. Hope usually sticks to it. Faith, too.

You have to have both things– someone who loves you enough to put your heart together, and enough pieces to assemble.

No one ever really gets to have all of the pieces together at once.
Not for very long anyway.
If you’re very lucky, you’ll have someone in your life who not only finds every piece, but puts them all together for you.
It might hold together for a year or two.
Then life will happen, the pieces will fall back out, and some of them will be misplaced again.

It’s a lifelong process, finding and losing the pieces of your heart.

But if you ever have your heart whole, even for a short time, you’ll always know what it felt like to have your heart in one whole piece.
Lit up from within.

What does that mean???

When I apologized for being too sarcastic today, my coworkers laughed and told me I’m not being any more sarcastic and difficult than I am on any other day??

It’s a good sign that they laughed, right?

Also, when I was threatening to open a vein (which I do multiple times daily) over some stupid project I don’t have time to work on, my coworkers pointed out that I have several other worse projects that might be more suicide-worthy if I was so inclined.

I am very proud of them. I have taught them well.

Ah, the love of your fellow laborers.