Walk Away the Day

Before I left for college, I spent the entire summer walking daily. I purchased a pedometer and a new pair of walking shoes and hit the road, specifically the dirt road across from my house. In the beginning, my dog, Sam, walked with me but after a few incidents of car chasing and almost being run over, my parents had to bribe him with treats to get him to stay at the house while I snuck out the back so he wouldn’t see me and tag along. It was hard at first, battling the uneven dirt/gravel combo and the heat of the sun, not to mention how horribly out of shape I was. I only lasted a little while at first but as the days went on, I pushed through the pain in my legs and the sweat in my eyes and kept going, eventually making it up to four miles a day.

I did this all summer and entered college the slimmest I had been since I was a little kid. Naturally, that didn’t last long. I was a victim of the freshman fifteen, although it was more like the freshman thirty. I’ve been struggling to get back down to that weight ever since. During every break from school, I made weak promises to myself to eat better and get back on that dirt road. And I would. For the first few days. Then I’d succumb to my mother’s southern cooking and eventual lethargy. It always felt nice to get back out there. It reminded me of the days before everything went to hell. Yet, I just wasn’t into it anymore. Perhaps the dread of knowing where I’d be headed in the next few weeks deflated the fun of walking. Maybe I just wanted to be lazy so I could work up enough stamina to endure the quarter ahead. Thinking about it now, I wish I would have taken the time to walk every chance I got so I could have cleared my head of all the caustic clutter that only piled up as each year progressed. Maybe if I would have walked more I wouldn’t have ended up with this huge mess that I have to deal with now.

As much as I hate to admit this, I think it’s true: exercise relieves stress. Maybe the exercise itself doesn’t relieve stress but provides the opportunity for me to relieve the stress on my own. And that opportunity is writing, of course. It’s just amazing how my head opens up in the dirt. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I’m not distracted by television or the internet. Without all these shows to watch and websites to visit and all the other technological interruptions that keep me from deep thinking, I’ve really been able to focus on all the foul things that float around in my noggin. (Even as I’m writing this, I’m watching television and listening to music and can’t seem to get this written as well as I want it to be.) But when my feet are sinking into the sand and I’m waving at the cows as I pass by, my head is clear and I’m able to get deep inside my brain and nail down my otherwise elusive demons. I feel like walking is the only time I can find some semblance of privacy, a location where my stress pours out like sweat and an energy that’s conducive for contemplation.

Now that I have nothing ahead of me, I can fully focus on walking again. And I have. In fact, I’ve been walking consistently for the past two weeks. I’ve only missed maybe a day or two and that’s been a conscious decision to do so. I don’t wanna start off strong and then get burned out on walking so I decided to take a day to relax and not walk so as to give my legs a bit of a break. The weird part is I really enjoy getting out there. Everything that was good about it the first time is good again. I find myself looking forward to my walks. Could it be? Could I really be looking forward to exercising? And I think that’s the thing about this walking. It’s not just exercise to me. I don’t even see it as exercise. It’s so much more. Of course, the initial intention was to lose weight but it became more about me losing my lunacy. I actually crave getting out there and getting my shirt soaked in sweat. There was one day that I didn’t want to go ‘cause I didn’t feel like it but I just kept telling myself I needed to get out there, that I would regret it if I didn’t. And so I walked and I felt much better afterward.

I walk daily now and intend to make that a healthy habit. I hope it will help my body and my brain. And what I enjoy most of all is the fact that I finally have something to look forward to each day. With no school, no job and no friends to keep me entertained, I mostly sit around and watch television until it gets cool enough outside to walk. It’s sad but this has become my life and I don’t hate it ‘cause I really see this being beneficial to me. It gets me active and provides an opportunity to organize my thoughts. My only fear is that missing one day will lead to me missing two and then three and then I’ll stop walking entirely. I have a habit of going full on with everything I do. I either wanna do something all the way or not at all. That’s why I have to make those conscious decisions not to walk instead of giving into laziness. And this is why I need to keep pushing myself to get out there as much as possible, to purge the pudge and, in the process, find a little sanity in the sand.