Erika surprised me last weekend with not one but two pairs of shoes. ( She even bought them new. 🙂 ) She was tired of seeing my worn-out but very comfortable work shoes. One of the pairs makes me feel like the god Mercury. The other pair? I literally danced and took off running at Academy when I felt how light they made me feel. I already feel that way most days, as if I’m a burning battery and my feet not quite touching the ground. Just at work today, I walked 23,000 steps, 75 flights of stairs, and jumped three railings. For years, I accommodated a huge amount of weight. I try not to think about spending those years not being the way I was always supposed to be. All the picnic tables I did not jump, all the miles I could have traversed in all manner of places, and the energy hidden inside my body but camouflaged by poor eating choices. Don’t get me wrong. I was very active and especially so because of my job. But there’s no getting around I foolishly convinced myself that it was more pleasurable to overeat than to feel the way I do now. As my friend Tammy taught me to say, nothing tastes as good as this feels. I know I won’t always be this way because age has no choice but to rob us incrementally of mobility. So if you see me jumping things I’m not supposed to be… Laugh and give me encouragement. You can laugh twice as hard if I bust my ass. Because one day, I will be like that native American next to the highway littered with trash, a tear in my eye, as I look upon a picnic table that I can no longer jump. So for today and all the days I can, I will pirouette, jump, climb trees, and remember what it felt like when I wasn’t truly me.

Love X
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