Living with the consequences of distracted packing. Or my two right feet.

Living with the consequences of distracted packing. Or my two right feet.

Packing in hurry. No, not even in a hurry.

This is the story of a distracted packer.

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The next morning after packing, I woke up in mountains of North Carolina for a family gathering.

I suggested a hike because that was my strategy not to come home 30 pounds heavier. Hike every day. Burn 326 calories to offset 500 calorie piece of pie after 2000 calorie dinner.

Talking my sister and husband into a four mile hike up a mountain, I ran upstairs to dress after my 1500 calorie breakfast. I put on my shirt. I pulled on my shorts. I rooted around in my suitcase for my running shoes.

I found one.

I found the other.

Except  . . .

Maybe this is a better angle.

My two right feet.

I can’t tell you how many times this clip went through my head in three days of hiking staring down at that.

“Am I nuts, or is something wrong with his feet?”

Yes, instead of two left feet, my story line held two right feet.

Determined soul or sole that I was, I hiked everywhere — tripping over roots and granite boulders — for three days.

Yes. Ninety floors in one day with two right feet.

What I learned.

By the second day, a left foot presses, sort of molds the inside of the right shoe so that it’s bearable. Though a right shoe turns to the left, the fabric and your left foot stretches the toe box to the right. Curving the way a left shoe would.

It’s more so the third day.

We are all bent in lots of ways.

If we don’t like the bend of our nature — I’m too loud, too quiet, not blonde enough — we can change our behavior, appearance. The world thinks we are a right foot but deep down we will still be a left foot pressing against instep of a right shoe.

Now this can be bad or good. Bad if we are trying to conform away from our true positive, unique nature.

Good if we are trying to change unhealthy ways we naturally bend.

But no matter how much we look like a right foot on the wrong side of the body, we are a left foot in the wrong shoe.

Only a miracle (or act of God) can change a foot. Or break it till it fits. Which can be considered an act of God I guess.

And that’s what goes through my mind hiking 90 floors with the wrong shoe.

I usually don’t daydream of God breaking bones but I usually don’t hike 90 floors in the wrong shoe either.