Shoes = Happy Soul.

The air was wet with rain from the east. The smell was glorious and reminded me of March rains that would dampen the earth to her core. There were puddles every where, thick dark mud arising from the earth like flowers pushing from mulched beds.
I picked up my pace as my earbuds filled my ears with upbeat sound waves. I was in the small park in my hometown and the wooded area I was in now just had one other runner.
From my distance I could tell she was definitely slimmer and in better shape than I was. I hated that that was the first thing I noticed about a woman. Not her shiny hair, or her soft cares-sable hands, no. It was always the size of her slim waist or the tautness of her thighs, and the thinness of her face. Always. I don’t know what my fascination with this was. Had I always been interested in these parts of a woman before? Or since I’ve decided to be healthier I’m also interested in other women’s health?
How do they do it? Why am I not there yet? How did I let myself get this fat?
That shallow body-hating voice echoed constantly in my mind. But somehow when the music picked up to a particular beat I enjoyed and my feet quickened to a slow shuffle, she faded away. The voice, the other woman jogging, society’s constant barrage of “sexy” women. It all faded away to the back corners of my anxiety induced mind.
Eventually I’m able to pick up my feet a little higher and push my calves farther away from me and I gain some speed. Still slow as fuck, but a little faster nonetheless. The wooded area where I was, was saturated with that morning’s cold rain and the wet leaves were clinging to every divot in the path. I decided to the long loop next to the wooded area.
A few minutes later I was still not satisfied.
I decided to go off the path and use the trails the deer and rabbits had carved out.
It was much harded because the mud was mixed with the sand from the creeks, and the ground was so soft that each step I took sank me closer to the earth. My calves burned in protest, my lungs struggled to provide my body with air, and my soul was utterly, irrevocably, unexplainably, happy.
My shoes were completely wet from the creek, caked with mud from the trail, and my cheeks were flushed a pleasant pink from my jog.
​Muddy shoes = happy soul.

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