Muffin Topless

I am a 43 year old woman attempting to rekindle my love affair with running.  It has been 10 years, 2 children (beautiful & amazing), 2 broken metatarsals, and one fractured fibula since I have given this relationship any serious attention.  I have attempted to rendezvous occasionally but alas, the battle cry of most moms, “My needs just never seemed as important”.   This changed suddenly when one of my dearest friends called me “Muffin”.  This particular friend has called me this for years as she is older than me and for a period of time, was proud of rubbing that in (funny how life turns that against you later!) by using enduring, yet youth emphasizing, nicknames and among them, “Muffin” seemed her favorite.  But for some reason, this particular time “Muffin” felt more like an observation than an enduring nickname.  YIKES…  That’s the day I decided this relationship is important and searched the darkest recesses of my mind (what remains, anyway) and attempted to recall all the positive things I used to love about this relationship.  After looking at old photos and reading old journals, I was able to recall that it added excitement, adventure, and vitality to my life in a way that it seems very little else is able to rival.  Vitality, adventure, and excitement were certainly old friends that I would love to reconnect with, so it was decided, I would work to constantly remind myself of the good things that I missed about this former lover.

My first step was to plaster the word “MUFFIN” on my bathroom mirror and then to go buy new running shoes.  In an attempt to avoid insufferable guilt if “life” got in my way again, I went to the clearance rack at my favorite running shoe store.  And, as lady luck (who decided luck was a lady…since this is my story, the role of lady luck will be played by a stud placed on this earth to anticipate and grant my every desire, I will call him, Severino)  would have it they had a good shoe for my foot type and it was in my size (always a success promoter).  That was all I needed to get started.

I stuck with my plan and after a few well timed complements from girlfriends (where would we be without our girlfriends), I began to see less of my “Muffin”.    After about 6 weeks in these shoes I decided I was serious enough and deserved my favorite running shoe.  I really agonized about the $100.00 that they were bound to cost; was I worth it, what if I quit…you all know the song!!  I said “Screw it”, I work hard, I am valuable, and I can buy myself new running shoes.   So the quest began.  I know what shoe I love (or have loved in the past) and went back to the same favorite running shoe store to exert my new found personal strength….YIKES those babies cost $125.00…ON SALE!!!  And the colors were hideous!!  Mortified, I considered giving up, but with “Muffin” taking up room in my head and refusing to pay rent, I devised a plan.  I hate that running shoe consumers are bent over daily in Honolulu so in a blatant act of defiance I ran straight to the internet.  I searched for all of 15 minutes before I found exactly what I was looking for…at a fraction of the price!!!  A word of caution, the shoes are last years’ colors so please go easy on me girls, my “slave to fashion” days have been twisted into submission and have given way to “slave to practicality” days; a sign of age I am willing to live with.  At the risk of having my fashionista card revoked, I will tell you that I actually prefer last years’ colors.  But alas, I digress.

After nearly 2 weeks of agonizing waiting, courtesy of the US Postal Service (next time I will pay the extra $10.00 for FedEx), my new shoes finally arrived.  Today is the big day, my first day with the new, foot cradling, sexy shoes. As I laced up these beauties  I had visions of my old body flash before my eyes, and with a ounce of anticipation and a smile on my face, I set  off to meet my old lover.  The first 5 minutes were just as I remembered; my foot hitting the pavement and the beautiful angels in the shoes painlessly pushing my foot back up, only to continue this beautiful dance over and over again.  Jolted from my bliss, I saw a creature rear his ugly head, did I remember this thing?  I searched my memory banks and realized this creature was familiar, he was the numbing of my 4^th metatarsal…who invited him, I wondered.  It took another moment or two but it all came flooding back to me, like my personal patronus warding off the demontors attempting to sabotage my progress, my sexy new Muffin Eliminators were tied too tight at the mid-foot.  I was in such a blissful space, I hated to stop and tend to the ugly beast but, like a crying child in the middle of a much needed sexual evening, I could not ignore it any longer.  I stopped and adjusted my shoes.  This seemed to set a fascinating pattern for the remainder of my run…find a good groove, adjust the shoes, find another good groove, adjust the shoes.  Funny how memories of the wonderful high, the tight, lean body persist like neon signs but somehow the mundane chores like finding just the right tautness of those kolohe strings just gets lost in the shadows of the neon glow.  By the end of the path I had established for myself, the shoes seemed to be tied just right. 

We will see tomorrow…