On Aug 17, 2025, I got a new pair of shoes for walking.
I had an idea to wear them only for walking and to record my steps after each walk. I was going to try to make it a year, but due to different circumstances, I made it to the end of this month, 8 months total.
I walked a total of 549051 steps… 245 miles.
We all know the idiom, “Walk a mile in their / my shoes” as a reference to understanding someone. I took notes sometimes after a walk. During these last 8 months, I had a colleague lose two of their grandchildren in a car accident. My oldest son got married. I walked on Halloween but didn’t get to walk with my youngest daughter on her last trick-or-treat trip, she was at a friend’s house.
I walked through hundreds of grasshoppers in August. I walked in the school on nights when my daughter had musical practice. I walked on a 65 degree day in February. I took notes for poems, some that are still notes. I walked on Christmas day, reflecting on family and how time was moving so fast.
The miles simply represent my life, as they would for you.
As I totaled the steps, I noticed something interesting. No matter what the day, or the route I took (I have a couple of routes I walk in the neighborhood), no day ever had the same number of steps. Ever.
So no matter how many times I took my ‘medium route’ in the neighborhood, the step count was different.
I understand there are a number of reasons for the differences, but that proves the point that even in the routine of our life, each day is different. Has a different step count because of the smallest changes to how we walked through the day. How we lived that day.
Maybe to understand ourselves better we should pay attention to how we walk in our own shoes.
And so my idea for this blog post comes to an end as I transfer the shoes to work shoes.
But, I did get a new pair of walking shoes…
It is all Connected 