Between the black eye and running out of right eye contacts, this is the first time I've worn my glasses for more than a day since I was fifteen. Sure, this pair isn't quite as round. But I can't quite shake those ninth-grade connotations: uncomfortable, uncertain, unpretty.
"You look different now with glasses," Kim says as we walk under late-afternoon sun on the Rocky Point track. "I remember when you had the bangs..."
"And really long hair..."
"Yeah!"
"I was such a loser," I say, watching my shadow grow taller on blue track.
"No, no! You were a dork," she says with a smile, "but so am I."
I still am.
We begin to run and my legs move quickly through the mind's fog.
I always think of goals, a purpose to this - the same difficulty with nights at Spins this summer - and by lap three I remember the Thanksgiving Day Races and that there's one I've never tried: the five mile. It might be lame compared to Joy's marathon in Athens, I think as I round a curve, but it sounds just about right for me ahora.
Glasses bounce on the bridge of my nose. I ran at Ridgewood with glasses, around and around the indoor track at Suffolk West, in the woods with Kelsey as snow began to fall.
Feet bounce to the beat in my ears. I hear less, see more. The breathing's more than all right though the training's been less than regular...
I hit that final curve - "One more!" I call to her as she walks - today will be one of those perfect kicks -
Do it for yourself.
I'm breathless but the best I've felt in awhile. I saw all of the bulky black braces while I ran but today my legs are strong. The knees turn in and the scar's pink as ever, but these are my legs and this is my strength.
And isn't that lovely?
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