muddy shoes

Since young adulthood, I wanted a different path than what was presented to me as a child. I wanted a path that that promised sunshine and glee. My given path was made of dirt, dust and muck. So if I see only one murky path before me, how do I choose to walk a different path?


To answer this question, I sat in observation of people "on their path".  I looked at how I was different than these people.  They stood with perfect posture; so I took yoga.  They smiled a lot; I cleaned by teeth and practiced smiling in the mirror.  They had money; I placed myself on a career path.  All this and still nothing I tried seemed to show me a new path, a different way of living.  No forks in the road appeared before me.  So I sat down in the middle of my path and asked myself, “is this my fate?  Am I supposed to be on this ugly path?”

In the height of my quandary, I looked up and saw a beautiful, happy woman skipping down her path. She was so happy I followed her, an interloper per say, stepping onto this stranger's path.   It was shiny and made of sparkling marble.  How wonderful it felt to stroll down a path of success, even if only for a moment.  I looked down and saw the contrast between my shoes, my muddy shoes, and the sparkling marble.  My shoes were thick, caked in layers of mud; the weight was difficult to lift.  I shuffled one foot before the other.  Simply picking up my feet was strenuous.

As I walked, the mud dried and slowly fell from my shoes, layer by layer. It was the first time I had ever seen my shoes without mud. They were blue, and really cute, with a gorgeous height and stature.   I smiled a real, peaceful smile, felt deep within my soul.  These are my shoes; they are on my feet.  These shoes are the first glimmer of the rightness of who I am.

In an instant, I jumped off the marble path, wiping the marble clean from my muddy intrusion. I apologized to the stranger, and stepped back onto my own path. It was dirt, ugly dusty dirt.  Feeling immanently sad, I cried lakes of tears, which fell from my eyes and onto my path, creating puddles of mud.  I had no choice but to stomp through the mud again; this was my path.

But in the height of drudging along with "fate" and "having no choice", I realized that if I didn't cry, my path would not be mud but dirt.  The mud would eventually dry and fall from my shoes, lightening my load.

After a month of no crying, the mud dried.  For the first time, I saw clean shoes on my own path. They were a bit dingy, but still the cutest shoes I have ever worn.  Happy and elated, I noticed how much easier it is to walk my path with lighter shoes.  And in these lighter shoes, I could walk farther, faster and with less effort.  Instead of spending all my energy on drudging through my self-made mud, I spent it learning and growing in wonderfully positive ways.

Because I no longer soaked my path with tears, it turned from dirt, to a hard surface, to stone, and eventually polished into marble.  

No more muddy shoes.



Copyright 2014 Yvonne Ramage.