to be given a day

Have you ever had that experience where you're doing something you've done a million times before, but it feels like the first time?

I suppose that sounds exhilarating: a novel thing every time you try.

But I'm not talking about exhilaration, sadly. I'm talking about my run this morning.

It was 6:15 and already 70 degrees. The sky was orange, and the air was thick enough to eat, creating, I guess a cotton candy-feeling world.

And it felt like I was running through cotton candy.

Or maybe that I had eaten a semi-truck full of cotton candy.

Or maybe that my shoes were made of cotton candy.

It sounds delightful to be surrounded by cotton candy—it really does because I associate cotton candy with the fair. And the fair means corndogs and funnel cakes. It means, perhaps, a parade, and if you're in a small town, it means running into everyone you know and getting to see them just as happy as you are, simply because you're at the fair.

But my run this morning did not make me happy. One foot in front of the other, and I glared at the orange sky.

Legs that should've been tree trunks—that's how rooted they felt. That's how much they didn't want to move.

I felt slow and wobbly and like I didn't want to be where I was.

Usually in my stories, this is where I'd have a sentence like: And then I turned the corner and I saw a house with an explosion of tulips outside and I realized that I was right where I needed to be.

I usually have a sentence like that because usually I can pull a reminder of beauty from even the ugliest of experiences.

But you know what? That didn't happen this morning.

No tulips.

No reminders.

No redemption of the run.

Just me returning to the gym after 30 minutes outside, sweat streaming down, stinging my eyes, feeling like I was already behind for the day.

I said this to myself this morning, and I'm going to repeat it now: You're up. You're moving. You've been outside, and the sun is there. What a thing of beauty, to be given a day.