Recent Things That Make Me Happy
1. Peeling and eating a grapefruit as if it’s an orange. I learned that from a coworker and now can’t eat them any other way. Now that I don’t have to make a big mess with a spoon, I eat grapefruits all the time.
2. Cliff Bars and Odwalla Bars. When I was a child, I hated the hippie foods my parents made us eat. Now I crave them. Mmm, soy.
3. The fact that it’s Friday and I’ll be starting my weekend soon.
4. The fact that my kids are back from their summer exile and we’re back into our routines. I like our routines. We’ve been reading Harry Potter every night. We’ve been going to our bubble-tea-house and playing cards and board games. I even enjoy overseeing the homework and folding the laundry with them, for now. (Give me a month to get over those two, though.)
5. The fact that the rain has had the tiniest, tiniest tinge of coolness on its edges lately. Or maybe it’s the sun going back in the direction it annually goes, that makes me feel fall is on its way, that makes me very happy to anticipate it, even in this heat. I love the fall so much. It’s my favorite season in the world.
6. I don’t know. Maybe I’m PMS-ing or something. I feel almost unnaturally happy. Not that that’s anything to complain about…
Segue into a Dilemma
… Or maybe this happiness is due to exercise. I’ve been walking again, lately. I started waking up thirty minutes earlier to walk the treadmill in the dark of pre-dawn. I’ve only done it three days in a row now, but already I’m wishing I’d started sooner. Because, already, I find myself popping out of bed, hurrying to get ready, and then running over to do my walk. As opposed to sitting on the edge of my bed and contemplating calling in sick, I mean.
Everyone who exercises knows about the endorphin rush it gives you, so I won’t go on and on about it. Suffice it to say that I like the walking so much, I wish I could run and maybe therefore get even higher.
However.
I don’t know how to run. This is the part where I ask for y’all’s opinions and expertise.
When I was a child, I walked and ran funny, for some reason. I was knock-kneed. I was sway-backed. It turned out, I learned in ballet class, that I didn’t even stand properly on my own two feet.
The ballet teachers taught me how to stand and how to walk. (Every single child should take ballet. It should be a mandatory semester of Physical Education.) However, they never taught me to run.
I’m not going to say that it should have been the responsibility of my Physical Education teachers to teach me how to run properly. No. I realize that they had a syllabus full of other things to teach us, such as shuttle runs and dodge ball.
However… Looking back, it seems to me that, if they were going to take the time to point at me and laugh when I did run, and sometimes go so far as to point out my amusing running technique to the other students and gym teachers… If they had that kind of time during our laps, couldn’t at least one of them taken a few seconds more to tell me how I should have been running, instead?
I run on my toes. On the balls of my feet, actually. This has never bothered me. It gets me where I need to go, if I ever have the need to run somewhere. (Though I make sure that I almost never do.) However, no matter how natural it feels to me, it cracks people the hell up. Maybe it’s not so much the ball-of-the-foot thing as it is that, combined with the “holding my upper arms against my breasts so as to keep them from banging around” thing? I don’t know. All I know is, people laugh, and I don’t really enjoy being laughed at. Also, the balls of my feet start to hurt sooner than I imagine they would if I ran on more than that. So, I want to run, but I can’t.
The obvious answer is, of course, “Run on your whole foot, and buy yourself a sports bra.”
But, then, my answer to that is, “But what if I still run wrong after that? And people still laugh? And it still hurts?”
I’ve watched other people running in the park. I’ve seen that there’s more than one way to run without being laughed at. But is there a correct way? A way that’s more efficient and less wearing than any other? And, if so, who can I get to show me this way? Do I need to hire a physical therapist? (It’s cheaper to refrain from running, isn’t it?) Should I just run the way I run and ignore the hecklers, even if I have to break up with them and disown them in order to do so? Or will that destroy my feet? Or, is it best just to keep walking, anyway, since jogging gives people heart attacks?
Let me know what y’all think. Or tell me what’s making you happy lately. Or commiserate with tales of your own sucky gym teachers. Or post comment spam, or just lurk. Your choice. Thanks in advance.
