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Every woman should have at least one pair of entirely impractical shoes. I don’t care if you only put them on to go to the bathroom. They should be there in your closet to remind you of your dress-up roots. (We all have them buried somewhere within us; it’s part of the female DNA.)
I bought another pair of impractical shoes today. They are fushia. Stiletto sandals. (Not too tall.) I’m in love with them. I found them in a small shoe store filled with all sorts of unpronounciable Brazilian brand names. I’ve only worn them to the bathroom so far.
My purchase today got me thinking about my wandering roots. I’m not much of a shopper because I equate shopping with hunting. There’s a purpose in mind, and purpose doesn’t usually bring me the refuge from the world that I crave.
Wandering, on the other hand, has no purpose. There’s no time frame. I’m not obligated to load plastic bags in my car.
I wander more than I realized. Sometimes I hop in the car and drive without regard for the cost of gas. Other times I just walk out the front door and pace in winding circles around my property or on the school campus or in a strange new place.
I’ve wandered alone on foot through the streets of Washington, D.C. and Cancun and a small town called Hubbard. I’ve wandered in silence with friends and acquaintances through Dallas and Vegas and Nashville. I’ve paced beaches in Melbourne and Sarasota and Nassau. My first cruise was nothing more than 3 days of me wandering all through the ship at all hours of the day.
Then there’s the wandering I do in my head. Through books. Through the internet. Through the endless array of puzzles and stories and rabbit holes that bounce through my mind in the course of a day.
I like it that way. It’s this wandering streak within me that leads me to the most fascinating places. It’s funny how you start to recognize the pieces that make up who you are. I’ve been a wanderer for as long as I can remember, but only lately have I come to see just how much a piece of me this is.
Sometimes I get a great pair of shoes out of it.
I’m sure my header picture tells my current story (check out the two month old date!). Since I don’t have internet access at home, I am limited to posting whenever I have some free time at some other place. I’ve posted some on my other blog, and keep thinking that I need to put something over here. So here’s some of what’s been going on.
Now that I’ve posted some updates, my mind is settled enough to share what is really on it. Yesterday I went home and wrote in my journal: My heart has cried and filled my soul with its tears.
I work with some of the most amazing people I have ever had the opportunity to know. (And for those of you who know me, that’s a pretty high standard.) The school I’m at this year is an interesting place. Just take the pieces I’ve shared and put it together. It’s one of the lowest socio-economic areas settled next to one of the wealthiest sections of Florida. Most of my students are the children of farm workers. The parents work in the fields or packing houses from before sunrise to well past sunset and even into the wee hours of the morning. This back breaking work often provides for them a government-assisted duplex, Habitat for Humanity home, or a single-wide trailer shared with another family or two.
During our meeting yesterday, we discussing some rather disturbing information about some of our students. In the process, we decided to throw a small holiday party for our neediest students. The six of us put together a list and then decided to give them each a stocking filled with small gifts and some pizza.
When I say these kids are getting nothing for Christmas, I mean they are getting nothing. Some of them don’t even have their families at home. That thought alone breaks my heart when I think about how much Christmas means to a kid. I remember a few years when we had a very meager Christmas at my house, but I still cannot imagine having NOTHING to unwrap.
The conversation progressed, and we ended up going from sharing lunch together and exchanging gifts as a team to pooling our money to buy pizza and gifts for our neediest kids. The best part is that it didn’t stop there. We ended up almost fighting over who is going to buy a special gift for which kid.
I am moved by that level of compassion. And I am so excited to go shopping for my girls. One girl told me that she wants to learn the piano, and I offered to give her lessons in the morning (if I can remember to bring in my keyboard!). I’m going out to find her a keyboard to keep at home. I don’t know what I’m doing about the other one next.
And I’m so afraid that this is not coming across just the right way. It was such a beautiful moment. In fact, I’ve had many beautiful moments lately that I haven’t written about because I’m afraid my words won’t do it justice.
So now I need to go shopping.
Right now I’m jealous. I’m envious. I want something that I see in other people.
I want a cause. I want an idea that moves me. I want to wake in the morning inspired by something beyond my control. I want to give my life away for something greater than myself.
I look around and see that my life has spun far out of control. It’s cluttered and suffocated by boxes of trinkets and too much credit card debt. This isn’t me.
I once said to my therapist that I really don’t care what other people think of me, but that I thought I was supposed to care, so I forced myself to do so.
There’s a reason I’m created this way. There’s a reason why my greatest drive in life to live my life. There’s a reason why following the “rules” has left me feeling empty.
I think I need to drop out of the race. I’m cleaning out the closets of my house and my head. I haven’t felt this sure of anything in a long time.
I packed my china today. It’s all wrapped in the guest bathroom towels and tucked away in boxes. I was high enough on that accomplishment that I packed up the kitchen cabinet filled with coffee cups and stowed our coats and jackets in a suitcase. I’m spreading out the packing and taking my time. This seems to ease my sadness at leaving my home. I do love my home, especially now that the carpet has been replaced and the broken furniture has been laid to rest. Here is the current version complete with my favorite rocking chair in front of the bay windows.
Right now I’m marveling at how God speaks to us. I’ve mentioned that I know this move is the right thing to do. The circumstances so far have been mind boggling, to say the least, and so much has happened in the moments when I thought there was no way for it to all come together. Even now, the woman we are buying the property from is steadily moving out. My greatest fear, though, has been saying good-bye to the place that has been my home for the last five years.
I don’t like to say good-bye. I even consulted a therapist once for advice on quitting a job that I absolutely hated. Imagine how much worse it is when I actually like the place, so I really have dreaded leaving my current position. Like I said, God has a way of speaking to us, and He did so for me today through my former supervisor. After being chastised today for turning in my notice so close to the start of the next school year, I had all the energy I needed to clean out the rest of my classroom and turn in my keys.
Once again, I know this is what I am supposed to do. It’s an incredible feeling. I’m still terrified of how we’re going to make ends meet, but I know that we will. This has been an amazing lesson in taking life one step at a time. After all, it’s all any of us can do—use the moments we have. I’m reflecting on this with each box I pack. It will all get done, one box at a time. One moment at a time.
Just a few weeks ago, my life seemed in such a state of disarray, I couldn’t drag myself out of bed in the morning. The school year was wrapping up. My much anticipated vacation was canceled. We couldn’t seem to find a home we both liked. Our bank account was about to reach the point in the year when it would only decrease. The strain of holding “it” all together was just a little too overwhelming so I slept. And slept. And slept. If you know me, that’s all you really need to know because you understand that if I’m getting more than six hours of sleep a night, something is wrong.
The time I wasn’t sleeping, I was praying that everything would work out exactly the way it was supposed to. I wasn’t worried because I knew it would. It seems like all those little loose ends are finally tying themselves together. This week, I’ve managed to find two positions in the area where we will be moving. I applied for a loan so we can purchase the property we’ve been eying. We sign the loan papers tomorrow. The homeowner accepted our offer, so we will now also have a little bit of cash to start some of the repairs on the place…and she wants to be out of there by August. I’ve discovered that the world won’t collapse if I stand up for myself and fight back every once and a while. I think my greatest accomplishment so far, though, has been my own little landscaping project around our dining room. I actually bought and planted some lovely Mexican Petunias, Sweet Potato Vine, and Diamond Frost there today.
So once again, I made it through this dip in the roller coaster of my life. Now it’s on to the next one, which will consist of telling my boss about the move, turning down a position, starting some wicked home repairs, and preparing myself to leave behind my beloved home. This will all nicely coincide with a new school year in a new district. There’s wonder in here somewhere, and I intend to find it.
I thought it was bad enough today when I waited in line at the post office for thirty minutes to mail a package I promised would go out today. I thought it was bad enough today when I wandered through the grocery store for twenty minutes looking for Cheese Whiz. I thought it was bad enough today when I waited for three hours for my husband to get back from his one hour errand.
That’s nothing.
I’ve stayed in destructive relationships with people just to avoid feeling like the time I spent with them was a waste. I’ve lost years’ worth of sleep staying up late to write because I had to work three jobs to pay the rent. I gave up most of my life feeling like I could never fit in with a group of people because there was something wrong with me. I earned a degree and slaved away at jobs trying to figure out a way to marry my dreams with the dreams everyone else has for me.
I hate wasting time.
Life is too precious.
If you wrote your life’s story, what pieces would you intentionally skip? I know you have them. I have several blank spaces, thank you. They are chunks of life that I’d often rather see slide away into the nether regions of the universe and out of memory. At least, I used to.
I’m finding that I’m feeling more and more comfortable in my own skin of quirkiness and tragedy. After all, most of those blank spaces are filled with my embarrassing quirks or heart-wrenching tragedy. You see, I’d prefer that you not know my mother has a mental illness or that my heart was broken by the man who told me he loved me but wished I’d lose another 30 pounds or that I used to keep a set of children’s encyclopedias in the bathroom for that special reading.
Then there is the flip side. I realized today that I am a blank space. I think of all the people I’ve come in contact with in my life and the moments we’ve shared. In the long run, no matter how beautiful or life-changing or heartbreaking or disastrous those moments were, they’re now blank spaces in our biographies.
Part of me finds this sad, not because I think everyone who has ever crossed paths with me needs to shout it from the rooftops. No, I think it’s sad because I wonder what we’re losing out on. How would the world—and our lives—be different if we actually embraced our quirks and tragedies? What would happen if dropped the facades? Can you imagine the freedom in our relationships?
I’m not ready to be an entirely open book. There are, after all, many blank spaces that will follow me to my grave. But there are far more blank spaces that are testaments to my humanity. At the end of the day, that humanity is what we all have in common.
