Tag: personal essay

Walking.

Something most of us take for granted.

Most children take their first steps somewhere between twelve and fifteen months old. Some take a little longer. Eighteen months, maybe.

The irony isn’t lost on me.

Because eighteen months ago, I had to learn how to walk again.

Not literally.

Spiritually.

Emotionally.

The kind of walking that happens when you’ve spent so long standing still that you’ve forgotten movement is possible.

Eighteen months ago, I decided I couldn’t do it anymore.

I couldn’t keep pretending to be happy while constantly filling the cups of others and leaving my own empty.

At first, it was simple.

My autistic son loved the park. While his father supervised him on the swings, I started taking a forty-minute walk.

Then I did it again.

And again.

Eventually, it became part of my day.

The funny thing about walking is that it gives you time to think.

The world suddenly becomes larger.

The walls of your life start to move outward.

What began as exercise became something else entirely.

The more I walked, the more honest I became with myself.

There were things in my life I had spent years avoiding.

Conversations I didn’t want to have.

Truths I didn’t want to face.

Parts of myself I had neglected for far too long.

A marriage that had been struggling longer than I wanted to admit.

I didn’t know it yet, but those walks weren’t just changing my body.

They were changing my life.

I noticed the way sunlight filtered through the trees.

I noticed my breath.

I noticed strangers smiling back when I said hello.

For the first time in a long time, I felt alive.

One day became two.

Two became a week.

A week became a month.

And somehow, months later, I realized I was still walking.

One step became two.

Two became a habit.

And eventually I couldn’t go back to the person I had been before.

There was a time when I walked with a cane.

A time when three miles felt impossible.

A time when pain convinced me my world would always remain small.

Little did I know I was about to learn I was wrong about a lot of things.

Six months into the journey, I had lost eighty pounds and, for the first time in years, I wasn’t living in constant pain.

What surprised me wasn’t the weight.

The pain disappearing surprised me.

The energy surprised me.

The feeling of possibility surprised me.

I remember the day I finally stopped long enough to really look at myself in the mirror.

I didn’t recognize the woman looking back.

Not because she was thinner.

Because she looked alive.

For so long I had been surviving that I had forgotten what it felt like to become.

My marriage eventually fell apart.

If I’m honest, I don’t know what either of us was holding onto by the end.

When I learned he had a girlfriend, the betrayal hurt, but it didn’t surprise me.

By then, I had already been walking away for months.

Not from him.

From the version of myself that believed I had to sacrifice my own well-being to keep everyone else comfortable.

For the first time in my life, I chose me.

I began walking toward things that nourished my mind, body, and spirit.

Step by step, my life changed.

I quit smoking.

I stopped drinking.

I began paying attention to what I put into my body and what I allowed into my life.

For the first time, I understood that caring for myself wasn’t selfish.

It was necessary.

Eighteen months later, I live in a different state.

I breathe easier.

I sleep differently.

I think differently.

I love differently.

Most days, I hardly recognize the woman I was when this journey began.

But I still walk.

I still take life one step at a time.

And somewhere along the way, I realized something.

My feet have carried me through heartbreak, motherhood, grief, joy, loss, healing, and forty-two years of becoming.

They have carried me farther than I ever thought possible.

I thought I was walking away from pain.

It turns out I was walking myself home.

And maybe that’s what walking really is.

Not escaping.

Not running away.

Just the slow and steady process of finding your way back to yourself.