Shoe Personality of the Week: 3/12/2012
It's been rather dead on this block for a while now. Coming back here today is more forced than anything else. My Life is swirling violently like a tornado & the last thing I'm honestly thinking about is whether or not I'm sharing my 2 cents. Ironically, what I'm experiencing is a silencing of sorts so it would seem that a natural response would be to come here to continue to share my voice. Well, when the shit hits the proverbial fan, our responses to it are often not sensible.
This evening, The Beau asked if I was going to post something today. It had crossed my mind but felt like 1 more chore to take care of & that needed to get behind me ridding my physical space of my mental clutter. I came here without really thinking it through & was surprised to see that my lack of posts has not created a lack of readership. Hope springs eternal. It is Sunday, soooo...
About this shoe:
When I was younger I remember my mother having shoes like these for work. My mother was this stylishly conservative woman--or was she conservatively stylish?--whose look was intriguing. She dressed the business role from neck to foot but wore her hair in a short natural, from time to time playing with shape. My mother rocked a gumby when Bobby Brown & my favorite MC's did. & she wore red framed glasses. She was about her business but she was also very much about the business of being herself. I watched my mom play the game, wearing her government name & the appropriate uniform by day. Nights & weekends weren't as yet a cell phone package but a way of Life for my mother. As a little girl, I was less interested in the way in which she juggled her worlds but in her beautiful shoe collection.
Now I have to call forth the subtle lessons I was being taught at the time. My mother, in my eyes, was the most indestructible, fearless, no nonsense woman EVER. I learned that you don't mix business with pleasure; keep 'em off of you about your personal Life; do your very best so that there is no question about your work ethic. My mother's unyielding jawline taught me that perhaps the way to keep the lines between business & pleasure, public & private from blurring was to keep my own jaw tight. Before I'd even gotten into the work world, I'd adopted that from her to keep bum ass boys off of me when their company wasn't what I was interested in. A scowl shuts down a whole lotta holla'n. But the scowl was for the block & the train. At work, I'm simply about my business so my face is serious. It's also a subconscious defense mechanism when the assumption is that I'm young & dumb. I don't play those games.
Life is causing me to have to soften on a lot of this. A briar patch of a journey, I'm spending too much time plucking thorns out of my usually thick skin. My mother & my Life are telling me to soften up. The difficulty lies in the reasons I've always had to be hard not changing at the same rate that I'm being forced to do so. A conundrum if there ever was 1. I have to redefine what "about my business" means. A friend posted a quote on Facebook some weeks back: Confidence is knowing you're good at what you do. Cocky is expecting others to know it too. That spoke volumes to me. Can't these people see how serious I am about what I do? Can't these people see how much I care for these children? Have these people not seen how much time & energy OUTSIDE of what & where I teach that I give? I don't need any pats on the back for it. I'm seeking more leavemetheeffalone-isms. Stay out of my way so that I can do what I do. Apparently that isn't possible. So, it's up to me to figure out how to save myself so that I can continue to give freely in the way my heart dictates without having my good intentions crystalize in the bitterest of pills.
Back to my mother's example I go, taking into account her mistakes as well. Recognizing how alike we are, I have to assess how much of that stands in my way. My mother didn't soften until recently. Maybe that's proof positive that I need to start kneading my perspective & giving a little. I have to learn to trust that no matter how jacked up things are, those messes will be cleaned up by the right people & being OK with the fact that perhaps I'm not meant to be on the clean-up team. #shrug
I'm working on it. In the meanwhile, I thank you for caring enough about what gets said here to keep coming through even I haven't. I'm working on working my way back. I'd love if you kept me close to your hearts & minds, sending positive energy as I fight this most ridiculous battle for the right to Be.
Watch me move.
This evening, The Beau asked if I was going to post something today. It had crossed my mind but felt like 1 more chore to take care of & that needed to get behind me ridding my physical space of my mental clutter. I came here without really thinking it through & was surprised to see that my lack of posts has not created a lack of readership. Hope springs eternal. It is Sunday, soooo...
About this shoe:
When I was younger I remember my mother having shoes like these for work. My mother was this stylishly conservative woman--or was she conservatively stylish?--whose look was intriguing. She dressed the business role from neck to foot but wore her hair in a short natural, from time to time playing with shape. My mother rocked a gumby when Bobby Brown & my favorite MC's did. & she wore red framed glasses. She was about her business but she was also very much about the business of being herself. I watched my mom play the game, wearing her government name & the appropriate uniform by day. Nights & weekends weren't as yet a cell phone package but a way of Life for my mother. As a little girl, I was less interested in the way in which she juggled her worlds but in her beautiful shoe collection.
Now I have to call forth the subtle lessons I was being taught at the time. My mother, in my eyes, was the most indestructible, fearless, no nonsense woman EVER. I learned that you don't mix business with pleasure; keep 'em off of you about your personal Life; do your very best so that there is no question about your work ethic. My mother's unyielding jawline taught me that perhaps the way to keep the lines between business & pleasure, public & private from blurring was to keep my own jaw tight. Before I'd even gotten into the work world, I'd adopted that from her to keep bum ass boys off of me when their company wasn't what I was interested in. A scowl shuts down a whole lotta holla'n. But the scowl was for the block & the train. At work, I'm simply about my business so my face is serious. It's also a subconscious defense mechanism when the assumption is that I'm young & dumb. I don't play those games.
Life is causing me to have to soften on a lot of this. A briar patch of a journey, I'm spending too much time plucking thorns out of my usually thick skin. My mother & my Life are telling me to soften up. The difficulty lies in the reasons I've always had to be hard not changing at the same rate that I'm being forced to do so. A conundrum if there ever was 1. I have to redefine what "about my business" means. A friend posted a quote on Facebook some weeks back: Confidence is knowing you're good at what you do. Cocky is expecting others to know it too. That spoke volumes to me. Can't these people see how serious I am about what I do? Can't these people see how much I care for these children? Have these people not seen how much time & energy OUTSIDE of what & where I teach that I give? I don't need any pats on the back for it. I'm seeking more leavemetheeffalone-isms. Stay out of my way so that I can do what I do. Apparently that isn't possible. So, it's up to me to figure out how to save myself so that I can continue to give freely in the way my heart dictates without having my good intentions crystalize in the bitterest of pills.
Back to my mother's example I go, taking into account her mistakes as well. Recognizing how alike we are, I have to assess how much of that stands in my way. My mother didn't soften until recently. Maybe that's proof positive that I need to start kneading my perspective & giving a little. I have to learn to trust that no matter how jacked up things are, those messes will be cleaned up by the right people & being OK with the fact that perhaps I'm not meant to be on the clean-up team. #shrug
I'm working on it. In the meanwhile, I thank you for caring enough about what gets said here to keep coming through even I haven't. I'm working on working my way back. I'd love if you kept me close to your hearts & minds, sending positive energy as I fight this most ridiculous battle for the right to Be.
Watch me move.
Comments
Post a Comment