My way

I had to go get my medicine from the clinic this morning and it was raining, so I decided to do my walking “early before breakfast” the way the skinny people do it, according to an article that I doubt was gospel in any way.

I am not prone to following other people’s ways.  They often don’t work for me.  My body has a clock and mind of it’s own and if I don’t honor it, I won’t keep doing whatever it is I am supposed to do.

I decided to walk at the local mall, a place I almost never shop at so it has a wonderland of colors and surprises to look at.  Once.  Since I forgot my glasses, it was mostly just that, colors and fly by mannequin forms, in the beginning.  Later I began to notice the other people walking and was surprised at the level of annoyance it caused me.

Here they came two by two, arms swinging, loudly chatting, having a gay old time; or in small herds usually led by the bull male, no one talking, eyes front, everyone focused.  The novelty wore off quickly.  I tried analyzing my feelings but never came to any particular conclusions.  It could just be that I don’t particularly like exercising and these fellow walkers were an easy target for my anger.

I noticed everyone stuck to a prescribed path that promised a certain number of miles, but since that has no meaning for me (I walk 40 minutes however far that is) I stuck to the carpeted areas as much as possible.  It feels so much better to my poor feet who object strenuously to this stuff.

Then I looked outside and saw it wasn’t raining so when I went down one of the auxiliary hallways I just kept going, right outside.  At first I thought maybe I was the only person doing that and was so proud of myself for being different!  Then I ran into the first fellow walker.  She was an older woman, meaning older than me!  And, she was very friendly.  Smiling, she called out, “I didn’t expect it to be so warm out!”  A little farther on I ran into a Chinese man about my age who commented on the lawn mowers sitting on the walk.  Evidently he doesn’t like his lawn mowers to be outside, which I found kind of cute.

At last I reached my car, dripping wet, glad to sit down and having completed another day of forty minute walking for whatever that is worth.