Day 3 of walking...

I couldn't fall asleep last night.  I found out why around 5:00 a.m.  I hadn't bothered to take my sleeping pill.  Without them I don't sleep well anymore.  I can and do sleep without them, and I'm not worried about "dependence", but I must acknowledge that I get better, deeper and longer sleep with the pill.

When I finally got up and out of bed, it was about 30 minutes later than I would have preferred, but I still got my lazy posterior out the door and walked.  Further than either of the two previous days.  The baker waved to me from the still closed bakery where he was putting the finishing touches on the creations to be sold this day.  I passed another walker but given the cigarette he held in one hand and the gigantic Starbucks cup in the other, it is doubtful he was out walking for his health.

There is a comforting consistency in passing the same storefront windows with the same displays, morning after morning.  A familiarity about the route, and the people whose lives I don't see because I walk through their world long before they take their place in it.

My legs were the sorest yet today.  Calf muscles ached, and my knees and hips were both very unhappy with the journey.  I'm just happy that my choice to not have the arthroscopic surgery I need on one knee isn't causing anywhere near the problems I thought it might.  I don't feel anywhere near the discomfort that was present several years ago when I tore that particular medial meniscus (I'd torn and had the surgery on the one in the other knee almost a decade ago and that knee is just sore). 

I do wish I'd done one thing different.  I wish I'd walked on Monday.  Because now, in order to get five days in this week, I have to walk on Saturday.  But next week, I'll walk Monday through Friday and take the weekend off to rest.  Or maybe take a rest day during the week and walk one day on the weekend.  There is no firm schedule.  Only the commitment to keep walking.