Autumn: If Wishes Were Horses, Then…

“I wish I could walk like her.” A woman,
about my age and hobbling with a cane, said this to her younger male companion,
possibly her son or caretaker. I had
never seen this pair before this day, but I greeted them as I do everyone on my
walk. They
nodded in my direction and moved on, to the yard sale down the street. The
comment was not meant for my ears, but I’m always hyper-aware around strangers,
especially in a neighborhood teetering on the edge – one reason I don’t listen
to music on my outside walks. My
hearing sharp, I could hear the woman’s plaintive wish, half a block away. I felt a
little shamed. Here I
was, bouncing around and walking fast, and… Feeling
sorry for myself. I had
just made the painful decision to go back on my CPAP – I could feel myself
slipping into old habits: sleeping late, going to bed late, getting up late,
eating as if were just coming out of a famine, and slacking off on my walks –
for me, the last bastion of healthy body weight and overall health. The
slacking …