New Shoes

I bought a pair of tennis shoes a couple of days ago while on holiday in Dallas.

The color: blue. 

The brand: Nike.

The size: 9 1/2.

As mundane as this appears, it's actually significant. Committing my own non-temporal resources to this exercise program further ensures my continued progress . And, this is the first piece of official athletic apparel I've purchased in nearly a decade. 

Decadent, yes?

While I've never gone to a gym while staying at a hotel, this time I felt compelled. Could it be that I'm developing an addiction to endorphins? Time will tell.

In Dallas, my trusty partner Matt Pena was nowhere in sight, but as much as I enjoy Matt's company, he doesn't compare to my wife Jana who joined me, my new shoes and my new hip t-shirt in celebration of our 13 years together. 

I realized as I pulled the laces tight that I have missed the feeling and familiar smell of that new shoe moment when the salesperson asks if you want to wear them out or keep them in the box. 

I always kept them on. Not only that, but I always walked out of the store with a feeling of hope. Those light spongy springy clean and squeaky footsteps echoing along the corridors of Penn Square Mall were possibility incarnate - the sound of opportunity. 

Of course, there was the commensurate burial of the tried and true - the well-worn and comfortable footwear of days gone by. Dropping these worn and tired reminders of things lost and forgotten into their dark and tissue-lined box was a closing of a chapter. Gone, but not forgotten. 

I loved my blue and red Reeboks...

Summer was new shoe time in my house. It was also new binder time, new spiral notebook time, new pencil time, new organizational system time, and new highlighter time. Everything crisp and ready to go. 

Entropy, however, is real. Things definitely become less ordered over time.

By early October, my binder's three ring system was out of alignment, the spirals were more like flattened ellipses, and each and every pencil I owned were unsharpened stubs somewhere in the bottom of my backpack next to a half-eaten peanut butter sandwich.

Although the slow drift from sweltering August to a bearable autumn also witnesses the dying of grass and the beginnings of a dormant time, September is also a time of renewal and focus - especially for those of us who are in the world of school and schooling. Our rhythms are geared to to September as  a time when our shoes are most fresh and the inevitable scuffs and worn spots haven't appeared quite yet.

At Casady, our shoes have served us well, and yet there are times when we must slip on a new pair; a pair that's better suited to stride into our future. We'll endure the occasional blister, of course, but as we learn to live with them, we'll flex and adapt and walk confidently toward excellence.