New shoes

I miss being a kid sometimes. The saying "Ignorance is bliss" didn't come from nowhere. When you don't know the true results, doing many things seems like so much fun. Having a rock fight as a kid was always fun until Tommy goes home crying with a lump on his forehead and bleeding. I remember me and my friends would always want to race after we got some new sneakers. It didn't matter if they were running shoes or not. We just knew our new sneakers made us run just that much faster. If I got some new Jordans or Reebok pumps, you didn't wanna see me on the basketball court. Even though it only took a few dribbles and missed shots to realize I was the same scrub who was playing the day before with some Diadoras on. But we didn't know any better.

From childhood it starts. Every year of elementary school, I couldn't wait to get to the next grade. Not knowing it just lead to harder and more work. Going from being the top grade at each level (5th & 8th) to the bottom of the bucket the next in middle and high school took a minute to get adjusted to. But for me the experience was part of the fun. I was an Army brat growing up. One of the best times of my life was 1st through 5th grade, always being the new kid in school. Between my mother being stationed in different parts of the country and me going to my hometown for a short period, I constantly stayed on the move and got to be the mysterious new kid that nobody knew. I lived my early life as a pair of new shoes.

In high school, driving was the next activity every kid looked forward to. Now half the people I know hate driving. We never knew that the anticipation was half the journey. We never knew that having something to look forward to was half the fun, not knowing what challenges were awaiting us. We looked forward to staying up as late as we wanted, drinking out of those weird shaped bottles, or smoking that stuff that smelled like a skunk had died in the room. Not knowing that there would be a time that all those things would eventually become old and regular for us (some of us), meanwhile loosing that same sense of newness. Even if we didn't do it early, we all have at one time or another we thought about sex. We saw some of the movie scenes that our parents didn't want us watching and we couldn't wait to make those sounds of enjoyment ourselves. That was until we learned about pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and some of the emotional feelings that came with such a basic animal instinct. To many of us back then, sex was a new pair of sneakers.

Some of those same things we looked forward to were just like getting a new pair of shoes. We just knew that we could fly the length of the court if only we could do what we had our minds set on. We dreamed and imagined what it would be like doing what seemed to linger in the cortex of our mind, no matter how many other things we shoved in our head, trying to level out our thinking.

Some of us had good and prosperous thoughts that we looked forward to fulfilling. We thought things like finishing high school, graduating college, getting a good and dependable job. Many others of us just wanted to be free. Finally be free to do whatever it was that popped in our head on that day anyway. Maybe we'd think of something else the next day, but it didn't matter. Each day was a new adventure. Each day was like lacing up a new pair of kicks.

Then, like most things do, each activity gets old. The alcohol we wanted to drink, we either abuse it or throw up enough times that we learn a lesson and slow it down some. That same sex we waited for our freedom to be able to get whenever we wanted or were at least able to, we often forgot those feelings are paired with feelings like leaves to a tree.

The same things that we waited so long to be able to get on the regular are the exact same things we later on start to take for granted. We take for granted the good sex we get from the love of our lives. We forget about the hard work many of us put in to be able to get that good loving.

We take for granted the alcohol we can now drink whenever we want to. We take for granted the fact that we couldn't wait until we were old enough to buy it whenever we wanted to. We got use to getting drunk every weekend and passing out on the same couch it took us a while to save up and buy. We now have to get use to the fact that drinking is nothing more than smoking or having sex, we can have it whenever we want.

Things get old eventually. I wish they didn't sometimes. I wish that the things we chased and waited patiently for would always have the same excitement as when we sought being able to have them anytime we wanted. I wish we remembered the struggle and anticipation we had for the things we take for granted.
Don't take things for granted. Don't take the things we waited so long to get for granted. Don't take the love of a good woman for granted. After all, you're the one who spent all that time and effort to get that woman. Don't act like she doesn't mean anything to you now. Nobody is perfect, and that includes you. But don't let you being unappreciative be the reason for your falling out of love with the best woman you have ever met. Don't get too use to her to the point of wanting to discard her like an old pair of Converse.

We grow old of things, just like our old sneakers that we knew were the truth when we first got them.  But life is about dreaming and then hopefully achieving the things we dreamed about. Life is not about taking for granted the blessing bestowed upon us simply because we got use to the idea of having what we sought in the first place. Life is learning to love and wear some of the same shoes until the soles expose a bare foot.

Love your gifts and take them everyday as such, A GIFT. 
The gift we loved when we first got it is the same gift we have before us now; Appreciate it.