As a kid, I didn’t think twice about walking five miles to my friend’s house, a mile to the bus stop, or three miles down the road just to see the old paper mill still up and running.
Walking was never a dreaded chore. It was sheer enjoyment. A means of transportation. A trip around the world and back. It’s what I did.
As a single mom with no vehicle and no money to buy one, I walked to and from work, to the grocery store and the Goodwill across the busy highway. I’d put my baby in the stroller and off we’d go. Just the two of us, down the old tree-lined, cracked, broken sidewalks of Wilmington, Delaware.
I was thirty-six when I started jogging and fifty-three when I stopped. At sixty-two, I started jogging again, but not with the same commitment or enthusiasm. It soon dwindled from walking when I felt like it to not walking, period.
But I never quit thinking about how much better off I would be today, had I never quit jogging. Because, now, two years shy of turning eighty, with neuropathy and back problems, it’s tough just getting out of bed.
But, I’m not in a wheelchair, or on oxygen, and because I don’t want to be, I’m going to walk. Maybe ten minutes. Maybe an hour. Maybe three days a week, maybe four or five. Maybe, only one day. But that’s better than not doing it at all.
So yes, I walked today. Really fast because it was freezing. My fingers were on the verge of breaking, and I was a hair from calling my husband to come get me!
Straight From the Heart 