A Tribute to my Chucks

I bought my first pair of Chuck Taylors at the end of my freshman year of high school. If you know me well, I'm sure you've seen them at least once. They are a very faded magenta with many tears and flaws but a lot of memories. Even though at the time I didn't realize what I was doing was "retail therapy," I bought the shoes just a few days after my great-grandmother Eulah passed away. In retrospect, that was the first thing the shoes did for me; they comforted me in a time of mourning. Throughout high school the shoes went everywhere with me; Honor Band, show practices, band camp, and eventually college visits. I wore them when I decorated the high school gym for prom, and there is still paint on the top from a busted a tub of paint. I wore the shoes at freshman orientation at Ohio State, and of course I've worn them many times as an official student. They have traveled with me to New York City, Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Toronto, ON, and countless other cities. They have even accompanied me to a Cavs game. The shoes also have been with me to every job I've ever had and have remnants of beer stains (Riverside Golf Club) and new coffee stains from Oxley's.

This summer my pink Chuck Taylors and I will make even more memories together in various countries in Europe. I like to fantasize about what food might be spilled on them or exotic foreign people who might step on them (follow this blog for pictures this summer!). Something else I like to ponder about is how much I have grown in these shoes; not physically, but emotionally. I've won, I've lost, been accepted and rejected. I've traveled and I've learned. I bought them as a 15 year old girl with crazy ambitions and I've grown into a 21 year old (woman?) with even crazier ones. So here's to you, shoes. They might not have caused me to grow emotionally, but they were there, protecting my feet from frivolous, exploding tubs of paint the whole way. 

Trash Hole: Stress vs. Fat Talk

My first Lenten/Fat Talk Free update is much later than I intended it to be because architecture (my major) put me through the ringer last week. Which actually taught me something: when I am exhausted and stressed, my mind automatically goes into Fat Talk mode. I averaged maybe two hours of sleep per night last week, so it’s kind of hard not to, well, call yourself a zombie when you feel like one. I had one or more major projects due each day of the week, and every time I turned one in, I hated it. As the week progressed it just got worse. My hatred of my work grew stronger and began to affect the way I thought about myself, physically and emotionally. I am proud of myself though, because even though I verbalized negative thoughts about my work, I only said one thing about my appearance. On Tuesday night I arrived home at my apartment with my roommate around 3:00am, and I said to her, “I look like a trash hole.” As soon as I said it I started laughing. First of all, what is a trash hole? And how on earth do I resemble one? Toward the end of the week I kept pointing out that I looked evil…according to my standards anyway. I’m going to blame the evil look on under-eye circles. They tend to make me look like a mean Eastern European after a while. I would not consider this Fat Talk because I was more or less making fun of the fact that I was hopelessly exhausted for the purpose of making my fellow, hopelessly exhausted friends laugh.

The way I treated my body physically also affected my thinking. I was running on espresso and energy drinks, an occasional real meal, junk food, and vitamins when I could actually get home to take them. Obviously the synthetic crap I was putting in my body started to make me feel bad. Over the weekend, I slept. A lot. And I had real meals!

Lesson of the week:

Treat yourself as nicely as possible (even in times of stress) and you can start to rule fat talk out of your life! God gave you your able body for a reason… So be nice to it!