Walking everywhere

There was a time not so long ago that I would wake up at the crack of dawn and hit the streets in order to get my walk in before work. Not only would I walk the boulevard at daybreak but would spend my two break periods at work out walking the neighborhood around the branch as well. Sometimes, on those really hard to deal with, all too frustrating days I would strap on my shoes and hit the streets once again after I got home, or wander up to the local track and do a few miles before I jumped in the car. Needless to say I was down to wearing size 36 pants again. I had a lot of things on my mind back in those days that needed working out. The work out I was getting was besides the point.

I recently rediscovered the joy of a daily walk again. I know that I've been doing a lot of walking for the sake of my groceries but this latest spurt of exercise has been a different thing entirely. I'm not too sure what brought it on. Was it the early morning light? The feel in the air at seven? Knowing that you're out there doing the same? Feeling like I was getting to be a bit too plump again and needed to keep those thirty eights loose and comfortable on my hips? Whatever the cause I've been enjoying it quite a bit, as it helps to keep my mind sharp at work and has given me extra contemplative time in the morning that I was needing. Time not so much spent thinking about what has passed but more on what's here before me now.

Life is so much different now than it was two or three years ago. I think of last year and all the grief I was dealing with and know that I have come a long way since then. I hear that time heals all but not in regards to all things. I know that work is better, that I have surrounded myself with good people and that life goes on. I know, too, that time has marched a long ways away from our days and that it has been almost a year since I've heard your voice. I know, too, that that's what you wished to see happen so all that is happening is according to your plan. What I walk and think about so much these days is that no matter how much I walk and wish you away you still somehow find a way back into my life.

Sure, that's going to happen, some might say, as you bring her to the fore daily with your active thinking and photographs and memorabilia. Okay, I'll take that hit. But it comes down to being something more than that. It's not a pattern or an obsession I'm dealing with here but more a form of breathing, or a sort of blood type, or some kind of genetic twist in the fabric of my soul. I can walk with the best of them, entertain colleagues, challenge myself at work, have tons of good friends in my life but the one friend that I miss talking to the most is you.

Somehow I can't or haven't been able to reconcile myself to that, no matter what I do. That I have to go for the rest of my life not being able to talk to you is a severe form of punishment that I have yet to figure out how to make good on. I can't for the life of me walk that away. I'm not like that character in the Great Escape, the Cooler King, who can sit in his cell and catch balls all day long. I wake and work and I work some more just to make sleep easier. I wake and I walk and walk till I drop and when I do I think of the walks I used to take, the ones where I knew your calls would be coming in as I walked along. You haven't dialed in for years now. I truly miss those calls, our exchange of words and life and laughter. As far apart as we are these days I might as well be walking on the moon.

But walk I do. And know that all that walking has done me good. As I walk I think of ways to improve my life, think of things I've done lately that have helped make me whole again. Leaving our life behind a step at a time has been hard to do but I am doing it. But at the same time I've found that no matter how far I walk away from you I find myself somehow getting closer to you. I've found, with all these miles behind me, that I am finally seeing you more clearly. Those miles have provided us with a buffer of time that is beyond important, but more than that those walks, sweaty, hard, tiring, have helped for me to better understand and respect your hard choices. That closer/further away thing has turned into a sort of Zen kuon. Good for me. Spiritual enlightment up and down the boulevard at 45 minutes a day. Good for both of us all the way around.

Your WHMB