-sometimes when I start a non-fiction piece I don’t know if it will be an essay I send out to publishers or a blog post. This one went out once to a magazine and then I decided: blog post! Have a great Tuesday!

Feet Don’t Fail Me Now

Sometimes my memory chooses to hold onto the most unexpected of images. For example, I remember shirts. Not what other people are wearing, but my own shirts from over the years. There was the long sleeved gray and purple striped one from when I was about seven. The gray stripe contained the word giggle which repeated throughout the strip like numbers on a stock tickers tape. I called it my giggle shirt.

Around that same time, I had a red T-shirt with the phrase “Feet Don’t Fail Me Now!” next to the image of someone running. I don’t remember exactly what the person on the shirt was running from but I think it was from another cartoon guy. They both had very Mad maazine type features. Mostly, I just remember the words and that I wore that shirt to field day at school. That year one of my events was the 100 yard dash, even though I had never been a good runner. That would also be the day I came home with bubble gum in my hair, a gift from some kid on my bus.

Field Day was always towards the end of the year, so I guess I didn’t have to spend much of the year with lopsided hair. My mother had tried to remove the gum with peanut butter, ice and who knows how many other pre-internet remedies but that gum would not budge. It had to be cut out, even as I cried as much as a balding middle aged man cries at finding yet another wad of hair in the shower.

I think I came in last in the race and I don’t know why I even entered the 100 yard dash. I was not a runner. I wasn’t a fan of playing tag with the other kids before school. I was terrible at “Duck, Duck, Goose” and I preferred to be the pitcher in kick ball rather than a runner. Yet, even though I knew I preferred walking over running, I wanted to be one of those fit athletic kids who could swing a bat; who could run the bases.

Even now, almost 30 years since elementary school, I still toy with the idea of being a runner. Even though I know how easily I tire ;how my feet (no matter how much I spend on shoes) have a tendency to ache. Maybe the eight year old me already knew this but was still being stubborn enough to fight the battle. I already had a few problems with my feet back then. I claimed it was from jumping off the jungle gym, in boots, when I was six, because I wanted an excuse. To my friends, I could even complain about my cheap K-mart shoes, but I think I already knew that I was just someone who didn’t like exercise, especially the foot pounding needed with running.

My feet didn’t really fail me back then but it was more my whole body, or at the very least, my heart. My heart just didn’t have the ability to will itself into exercise. The only reason I didn’t do well on the Presidential Fitness Test was because I couldn’t jog a mile. I wasn’t even chubby at the time I was supposed to do it. I just couldn’t run. I’d get a stitch in my side and my feet would get that familiar numbing ache. Even so, in high school, I was on the track team for all of two meets. I joined with a friend of mine and I wheezed so much the coach thought I had asthma. During the on campus physical that was required for you to play school sports, I was told by the doctor that I had grotesquely enlarged tonsils. They weren’t removed for another year. Another excuse? It wasn’t that I couldn’t run, right? I just couldn’t breathe.

Once, as an adult, when I thought I’d try jogging again, I even went to have my feet properly checked and while the doctor thought it was more about excess weight, the shoe people said I pronated and that my arches tended towards being flat. My feet were trying to tell me: you are a good walker. Why run when you can stroll?

I had minor struggles with my weight, even as a kid, but nothing really noticeable until puberty. I could usually cut back a bit on my eating and get that weight to disappear but as I got into my mid 20’s that was no longer the case. I tried gyms, workout classes, diets, but mostly I returned to my love of walking. At one point, I even lost a good 20 pounds before my first trip to the West Coast. Little did I know, when I would return from that trip to San Francisco that I’d be diagnosed with plantar fascitis in both feet, that I’d have to go through months of physical therapy, that I’d gain back those 20 pounds plus 20 more and then 20 more until I literally did hurt my feet when I walked because of all the bulk I was carrying around.

Maybe you could say my feet failed me, but I say I failed my feet.

I’m still trying to get my weight under control and part of this is getting out to walk but every time I do it: I worry. My feet start to ache very quickly even in expensive shoes. When I am by myself I can slow down, take breaks, do stretches to keep my feet from giving up on me but what to do when I’m out with other people? I try not to do too much walking around anyone who knows me. Will they judge me for my slow pace? During a trip to Japan I spent each evening in a hot tub trying to rub the life back into my heels. I was scared of that trip and I’m scared of taking any others right now that would involve walking because I know that my feet may seize up; that I might start to fall behind as I try to lug my unwieldy body around.

And, I’m tired, Really tired of having to worry about every step I take. But, I’m starting to challenge myself more as I picture myself in grade school, defiantly competing in the dash even though I wasn’t a good runner, wearing a shirt that dared my feet to keep going. That same kid who went to school with a bubble gum chunk of hair missing from the back of her head. I think of her and I want to keep trying. I will myself to think that each step brings me a bit closer to my excess weight going away; that each flex of my arch draws me nearer to a day when I don’t even notice I am walking; that each practiced movement eventually becomes so welcome that I long to just get up, to put on my shoes and to go.