Shoe Personality of the Week: June 22, 2014

This life is so very interesting. If you pay attention, that which you say you want comes to you. It's often not wearing the clothes you wanted it to, or saying the exact words you expected to hear. It may not come on the day you requested, but it will come. Don't be too punk to accept the gifts you've requested. A care package is a care package even if you unknowingly sent it to yourself through your words & actions.

This is the official 2nd day of summer & I promise I can't recall a time I've felt lighter or brighter. There are no zany adventures or resort style R&R on the docket, yet, but I have a peace of mind that is unbelievable right now. I made a wish list some time ago, after getting something else that I wanted. I did the thing that I asked for, did it well, & now it's time to move on to the next step which will help me seal the deal in another area of my life. & I'm stepping lightly & lively into this chill I've begged for.

See, Mama's tired. Tie. Red. As a mentor has said to me, I've been burning the candle at both ends, & around the middle. Basically, there is nothing left. If this were a cut, I'd be at the white meat right now. Everyone I know seems to be in this phase right--working too goddamn hard for too goddamn little in order to say that we're not lazy, I guess. I honestly don't know what all this slaving is about except that somehow this capitalist machine has convinced everyone that this is the way. My full time exhaustion calls foul on the play & I've decided that as soon as I get finished with this degree, this insanity--no Shaun T--is coming to a screeching halt. I'll be required to work hard to build my next layer but it will be approached greatly different than this foolishness I'm currently neck deep in.

Between now & then, my goal is to take more off of my plate & commit to not taking things off to be replaced by more things. I'm not here for counterproductivity or counterproductiveness. You choose whichever made up version you think makes the most sense here. Other things I'm not here for:
1. Only being in my home to eat, sleep & change clothes. I don't even sit still in my own place of residence. My couch has barely seen my underside. I want to read a book in my living room, catching the breeze.
2. Eating. Don't get me wrong, I love to eat. I'm tired of eating get-by food. All things carbohydrates with sugar or salt to satisfy the cravings for comfort foods while going through this most uncomfortable period of full time work & full time graduate studies.
3. Self care. I've gaine 5 lbs based on #2. That single digit number might not be shit to you but I ain't tall as nothin' & have no room to be adding extra pounds to my petite carriage. All this thigh touching & ass jiggling for normal activities ain't hardly cute. Y'all can have it back.
4. Missing The Beau. I'm too tired to do anything & too disinterested & therefore just want to sit...& eat. & then lay. Til I fall asleep. That's not sexy at all. I thank The Beau for putting up with this but it's unfair to him.
5. Not smiling. I had great students this past school year that kept me laughing & smiling during the work day but school easily wiped all that out in the evenings. As did the exhaustion, & the lack of interest in anything. Tired is boring as hell for everyone involved. I no longer wish to be involved.

Now with the sun out, I'm kicking my proverbial feet up & committing to showing these teeth. & laughing a lot. & playing. & all around enjoying myself because I'm enjoyment deficient & I've already addressed all that this is not.

Join me, if you will, in being silly & wearing bright colors & eating popsicles & living on fruit & climbing trees & beating kids in races & sipping chillers at coffee shops while pretending to work but mostly people watching & going to cookouts & day parties & Netflix binging & drinking enough water to drown (cuz you couldn't do it during the school year) & enjoying the hell out of the daytime (cuz 3/5 nights a week I'll be in classes...til 10) & checking books off of reading lists, & loving on the people I love because I'm not even sure they remember what I look like after all of this.

Happy Goddamn Summer!!

Watch me move.