Old Socks
I was running late and in a hurry. I threw on underwear, socks, a shirt and pants and dashed out the door.
I was stepping into the car when I felt my socks had slipped. It was an older, grey pair that had gone loose from the stressed elastic. I felt that one sock had slipped down, around and under my heel and was already bunched up in the arch of my foot.
“Fuck,” I said, imagining the annoyance of those old socks all day long. I’d been there before, taking my shoes off to pull the socks up around my heel, just to slip down and bunch-up inside my shoe again and again.
“Fuck it,” I said.
I closed the car door and dashed back inside. I tore off my shoes and those old, grey, loose socks. I got a different, newer pair – a tighter pair. I slipped them on, then my shoes. I threw the old, grey pair in the garage on the way out again.
I got in my car and headed off for work.
The act of changing and discarding those socks wasn’t a miracle. It wasn’t anything like a baby’s first word. It wasn’t a spiritual reawakening. It wasn’t signing the last check to pay off your 30 year mortgage. It wasn’t a clean bill of health after years of a life-threatening illness. It was just the decision to put on a better pair of socks, even though it was gonna make me a few minutes later than I already was.
No, it wasn’t a miracle. It wasn’t anything too out of the ordinary. But you gotta start somewhere if things are ever gonna get better. At least that’s what you gotta believe in order to keep going.
mrobins71 