One Day

Today it rained, and it rained, and it rained. It started sometime in the middle of the night last night and didn't stop until about 5:30 this afternoon. It was a steady, soaking rain, with just a little thunder in the last hour. Just what north Georgia needed.

What this meant for me, though, was that I was not able to take the girls to the park for our daily workout/playground routine. So we hung out at home and played and watched cartoons all day. My plan was to visit the gym tonight after the girls went to bed so I could do my workout on the treadmill. But, with the rain finally gone, I decided around 6:30 that I would head to the park instead.

Because of the rain, the park was largely deserted. I got started on the oval, and spent my first 5 minutes of walking admiring the leaves, which are just beginning to change. Jog 1 minute, then walk another 5, this time feeling the cool wet air on my skin. Jog 1 minute, then walk another 5, watching the clouds - the lower, wispy layer moving quickly west as the higher, denser layer labors slowly to the east. Jog 1 minute, then walk another 5, enjoying the silence, broken only by my footsteps and those of the 4 people I shared the oval with, the birds no longer singing. Jog 1 minute, then walk another 5, watching the clouds and they change from grey to purple to pink to orange. Jog 1 minute, then walk another 5, where it is now dark under the trees, and the sky has lost it's color. Jog 1 more minute, then walk home, thinking that now I understand the solitary nature of runners, being isolated from your surroundings for a short time. For during those minutes of jogging, there was no sky. There were no birds. There was no one on the oval with me. It was just me and the dirt beneath my feet. The air I breathed in giving strength and speed to my limbs. And I relished it. At the end of each minute I thought "that was it? That's all I get?" And spent my walking moments waiting for the next minute when I could lose myself in the pounding rhythm of my stride.

When I began this program, I was self-conscious, heading to the oval each day and walking as people, fitter and faster than I, passed me again and again. I would look at the women, with their lean muscles and ground-eating strides and would think to myself "what am I even doing here?" I would imagine what they were thinking of me, pushing my girls and dragging my heavy body behind me. But tonight I realized, they aren't thinking of me, they don't see me. They don't make eye contact because, to them, I don't exist. To them, there is nothing but ground and sweat and air.

Tonight, as a young woman began her run, I looked at her lean muscles and I thought "One day. One day, perhaps not for a few years, but one day, that will be me". And as my legs grow stronger and my body grows lighter, I will run faster and longer. And maybe one day someone will look at me running and say "One day, that will be me."