December 26th and My Legs Are Filing a Complaint

The tree is still up. There are approximately fourteen containers of leftover Christmas food in the fridge. And I was in the rec center parking lot at 8 a.m. because apparently that is the person I have become.

I didn't plan to run today. That's the honest version. Yesterday was long in the best way, Christmas has a way of making you eat more rolls than you intended and stay up an hour past when you meant to, and I fully expected to wake up this morning, look at my running shoes by the door, and have a very reasonable internal debate that ended with me going back to sleep. Instead I was lacing up before I'd fully decided to. Which is new. That never used to be how it worked for me. There was a time, not very long ago, when every single run required a negotiation. Now apparently my hands just start moving.

the part nobody photographs, the shoe check that tells you everything

The track was almost empty, which felt right for a Wednesday after Christmas. A few other people who had apparently made the same quiet decision. Nobody talked much. It was cold enough that I could see my breath for the first half mile, and my calves were staging a small protest from the start, and I kept thinking about leftover pie, and I still finished. And then I stood in the parking lot doing my cooldown stretch and looked at the frost on the cars and the bare trees and thought, okay. This is mine now.

cooldown, December 26th, nobody asked me to be here

I've been thinking a lot lately, about the application, about the essay I haven't written yet, about the number I sat down and actually looked at for the first time last month. There's a lot of open water between here and wherever I'm going. But I ran on Christmas morning in April because someone at the rec center said there was a group, and now I run on the day after Christmas because my hands started moving before my brain caught up. Something about that feels important. Like proof of something. I'm not totally sure what yet.