I wake them up on late afternoons or early Saturday mornings before dawn. They travel sidewalks and streets, swerving around people and careful of cracks and tiny brown piles. They pound and they pound. They hear my complaints but soldier on. They feel the pangs and aches and try to soften both. They absorb the tears of my feet–the trickles and the sobbing. They celebrate with me each time I finish. And they always remind me at the end of a run that I’m never sorry I decided to run.
They are just shoes. But they do so much for me.
