I love my old boots

Maybe I'm getting old?  There was a time when I would buy any cute shoe, in any too small size, if I could just get my feet into them. The pain was irrelevant. I'd wear thinner socks, or none at all. Or just take the pain, grin and bear it, as they say.

It wasn't even that I have big feet. For my height, they're almost small, especially looking from up here. *pause for snickering*  OK, they are a size nine, American.

I walk. Not for a living, but for life, or whatever you'd call it. I walk because I like setting one foot in front of the other. It just feels so good.

My hiking boots are big, and very old and very, very broken in. They are, actually, full on broken, there are cracks in the leather and my toes have made such an untidy row of low spots in the front. They smell of leather and of sagebrush - and of me.

My boots will be gone soon, maybe after this winter. I will miss them. I will look forward to getting a new pair. But I want to hurry up and walk all I can walk in these wonderful old boots as long as I can.

(Also, I have been gone for weeks, from here, though not walking... Things ganged up on me - things to do.)