Shoe Personality of the Week: 7/25/2011

I’ve mentioned it before but my high school situation was unique. My school was HUGE, accommodating grades 7-12. At one point my sister, who is 5 years younger than me, went to the school with me. We hadn’t had that experience since she was in Kindergarten and I was in the 5th or 6th grade. The bulk of the students were of the vanilla persuasion & the rest of us Brownins got in where we fit in. It made for an interesting blend where we bonded on the strength of being minorities FIRST & foremost. We didn’t all hang tight but we all hung together. Younger sibs accepted into the crew as well. It was strangely beautiful.

The Facebook Gawds have blessed us with an awesome tool for social networking (is this now a proper noun?) & gave us an opportunity to have a more meaningful reunion of sorts. A bunch of us gathered at a table made for small family Thanksgiving meals upstairs in a restaurant a far cry from the Bennigans days of yester year. We are all of legal drinking age with our own hard earned dollars in our pockets/purses/wallets/bank accounts. We, those of us who’ve not seen each other in a long time, marveled at how we’ve grown taller/wider/thicker/more beautiful or handsome. We laughed at old times, questioned each other’s memories & laughed through the creation of new ones.

It is on these occasions that I get to see the beauty of maturation, how life progresses. Two of us have done bids in the pen, some of us are married with children, some of us are divorced, some of us have lost incredible amounts of weight, shed relaxers, grown lots of hair, shaved heads (me), etc. We are dynamic in our own right, beautiful examples of the power of possibilities created by parents who had a better vision for the lives of their children. We’re all doing SOMETHING, contributing in some way, & setting examples. We exuded happiness & pride & reveled in the genuine joy of being not only proud of self but of each other. We are GOOD people.

Blah blah blah yackety schmackety. Get to it already, Ndygo.

Celebration. That’s the point. Coming together to celebrate our accomplishments is necessary. Crawling out from under our rocks & the weight of the grind is necessary for recharging. We hold the keys to each other’s sanity. We are the mirrors of each other’s accomplishments, the keepers of the reminder that we are not islands. I am a part of them & they are a part of me, 1 of many communities I’ve become a part of over the years, & they too help me move forward. I love the Me that they see, remembering me as a skinny, braces wearing girl on the precipice of womanhood but not ready to put my toe all the way over the line. Their perspective is unique as part of my history; assessing my present & helping me make discreet determinations for my tomorrow.

Life is incredible! This ride I’m on, running parallel to theirs, is fun & anxiety inducing, bringing my stomach into my throat on occasion with the comfort of good people in the seats next to, in front of & behind me. I blow noise-makers in their honor. They throw confetti in mine. & we help each other clean up before getting back to the grind. Celebration.

Watch me move.