high-lighter.

Lately I've been thinking about all the things we need to unlearn, the falseness we build upon, and how to get to the core, the real.

And It starts at Wal-Mart.

This was before I was aware what that place would become. We went there to get shock for our swimming pool and rings to throw in the bottom, to search for like dolphins or mermaids or whatever identities our childhood imaginations could conjure. There were no groceries or super-sections of super centers.

This particular trip culminated alongside the impulse purchases that have since expanded to include sanitizing wipes, though the disposable cameras have come and gone. Before all of that, there were candy and magazines, and a distinct memory of the beginning of not measuring up. I was in between my mother's silver shopping cart and a few girls my age. I was fair and brown headed and freckled and they were distinctly different, their skin kissed by the summer sun, their hair streaked blonde from the same rays, and that's the first moment I remember an inner tendency to compare. And from that tendency followed feelings of inadequacy. I was somewhere around the age of seven.

And somewhere around that same age, I began to have an affinity for women in long skirts and long hair and in my head, that's what I viewed as adulthood, the version I would like to live in. I had always been interested in fashion. I picked out the right bags and shoes for my beloved Aunt Mae that took care of me as a child at the age of four, and I'd shudder when my mom would leave the house in something red while wearing bright pink lip stick. Style was a part of my inner make-up, but that didn't have anything to do with the previous mentioned affinity. It had everything to do with the lightness the long flowing skirts represented.

This lightness could be seen from the tip-toes these mystical women walked on, the sun that was always out when they were around, the weightlessness in their laughter, the ease with which they traveled from room to room. They were the listeners, attentive, present. But they were hard to find.

So many of the women I was immediately surrounded by were anything but light. They were inspiring in other ways, but their steps were heavy, their demeanor distracted, their mannerisms stiff, their clothing not ever fitting quite right. The feelings that met me in line at Wal-Mart encouraged this phenomenon, in the form of unnecessary pressure and unachievable expectations.

Life is so much about unlearning the crap we stuffed into our formative brains in line at Wal-Mart, the sneaky sentences that hold us back, lessons we clung to that were not ours, thoughts that discourage and tell us to hide ourselves from others.

Don't shake the ground each time you take a step because of unnecessary baggage. You'll run out of places to walk and buildings that can hold you. Walk your thoughts to images of the wind blowing the curtains, the hang gliders of the world, the birds, and the people you know that walk with ease upon their toes. Take from them what's good, true, real, and walk lightly.

And get the helloutta Wal-Mart.