I go for daily walks. Longer ones, now, thanks to a bit of an accountability push from a friend. But I go outside daily, at around more or less the same time every day. I drink the same number of cups of coffee every day. I work the same number of hours pretty much every day. I eat the same lunch every day. I cycle between one of five meals for dinner every night. Breakfast is the same almost every day of the week and then every weekend when I bother to eat it. I drink the same amount of water, take the same medications, eat the same snacks (thought the quantity varies), walk through the same rooms, drive the same places, do the same things, and on and on and on and on. Nothing changes. Sometimes I eat cereal for breakfast instead of a banana, but I still eat the banana eventually. Sometimes I have a can of soda instead of ice cream for desert after dinner on the rare days I feel like something sweet. I write at almost the same time every day. I stand the same way. Even my speech falls into similar patterns from day-to-day, given my relationships and the people I talk to. And sure, my clothes are different and while I often do wear different shirts on different days, sometimes I just wear the same shirt on a given day of the week. The only thing that really changes to make the passage of time is the weather and how worn out my shoes have become.

There’s a bit of a famous line from a Terry Pratchett book that’s bandied about often, known as the “Samuel Vimes ‘Boots’ theory of socio-economic unfairness,” though most people who do so use it as a means of discussing its core tenant–that the poor wind up spending more money on things because they are forced to buy cheaper, inferior products that wear out more quickly since they can’t afford the more expensive and more durable equivalent–the “boots theory.” This comes during a bit of writing about how the aforementioned Samuel Vimes could tell where he was in the city he patrolled by the feel of the cobbles beneath his feet thanks to how thin his boots had worn. Over the years of walking the same paths over and over again, I’ve developed a similar level of familiarty. I’ve also developed a familiarity with how much lower-back and shin pain is solved by putting on new shoes. Thanks to my particular gait, my tendency to walk almost two miles of coarse asphalt a day and at least half a mile of contrete sidewalks still in the process of wearing smooth, and the cheapness of the shoes I buy, they tend to wear out in a year or two. I’m sure if I bought nicer shoes, they would last longer, but maybe not. I’m a big person. I walk wth a bit of a shuffling gate. I do a relatively large amount of walking. It’s difficult to say how long any shoes would survive, but I would expect to get more than a year and change out of a pair of daily-use sneakers. And yet the pair before last wore through to the in-shoe padding. The last pair had half the eyelets and lace loops tear or rip out. This pair…. well, I saved them quite a bit by not walking as far as I used to and spending more of my walks shuffling through the grass next to the sidewalk rather than walking along it, but they’re gettng close to the end of their life. I can feel it in the pain of my feet.

It is weird to tell the passage of time by the wearing out of my shoes. Even as the temperatures rise and fall, flowers bloom, trees regain their leaves, and storms pass overhead, the days still blend together. A cold, grey, windy day feels the same no matter what the temperature is. Each passing week feels the same as the next. The only thing that changes is the podcasts I listen to as I walk and the way my feet feel as I stride through my daily loop. I can’t quite tell where I am in my walk by how the asphalt feels beneath me, but I can tell how much further I have to go. I can tell how much longer I probably have before the soles wear out (three or four months). I can tell if my shoelaces need replacing (they did) and if the new ones are holding sufficiently (they aren’t). I can tell it has been two weeks since I started doing full walks again because my lower back feels better, but the arches of my feet do not. I can tell it’s still dry out, even if the air feels a little humid, because of a light hising noise one of my shoes makes if I step heavily on it since it bubbles silently instead if its even a little damp. Finally, I can see where my steps weigh the heaviest on me and the world at large, thanks to the parts of my shoes that are worn down the most.

It is a small thing, but this sense of change, thanks to my shoes slowly heading towards the trash, is all I’ve got that doesn’t fade into the background of my life. It might yet do that, I’m still adjusting the my increased-length walks, but right now it is the only thing that marks the forward march of time as I slowly lose my attachments to the world around me. Resting is important. Doing as little as I can this week (a task I’ve already failed quite emphatically), though, has made the days blend together in a way I don’t much care for. I have a few big events this week, more than usual, but it is all I can do to track the time in between them as I repeat the same tests at work again and again, have the same conversations again and again, and feel my entire life devolved into a series of loops, constantly repeating, as I eat the same sandwich while watching the same youtube channel, and have my lunch interrupted for the same reason. I need some variation. I need things to be different. Or I aleast need them to be better if I’m going to be stuck in these ruts for the rest of my existence.