Walking is something I enjoy. Whether it is walking on the beach, my daily brisk walks or walking on hikes, walking is an integral part of my life. It is the most enjoyable form of workout especially when done outdoors. It can be a pain too when one has to trudge broken footpaths, open gutters and insane bikers who treat footpaths as bike paths. That could be one of the reasons why I prefer not to walk on roads or footpaths unless absolutely unavoidable.
Walking also brings forth memories. This one is actually a funny memory. For the longest time, I remember that as kids whenever we were rushing to a place that required a fair bit of walking, it was dad who spearheaded the group walking ahead sometimes separated by a distance of many footsteps with mom huffing and puffing to keep up and us kids sprinting to match dad’s pace. Considering that he is 6’2” and mom was a good 1 foot shorter than him, the long strides added to her woes. Later, it was sort of accepted that she would languish behind. Some of us would just hang around with her while the others tried to run and catch up with dad. It was the most hilarious to watch on railway platforms. As the siblings grew older, we even gave mom a hand when out hiking.
Cut to the scene now with my family. My husband and I are better balanced in terms of height. He is a few inches taller and we manage our strides really well when we go for our brisk walking. But at other times, due to some strange reason, I see myself falling behind. The other day he commented that even if he slows down, he finds that all of us including the kids slow down so in effect our formation as a group remains undisturbed. It is as if we expected him to lead the way. One advantage of that approach is that we are forewarned of sudden craters, missing slabs on footpath, dog/cow poop on the street etc.
When I thought about it, I felt he was right. I sort of naturally fall behind when we walk together as a family. I guess it must have started when I tried to go slow with the kids who had to run to keep pace with us. Slowly, that became a habit. Even now, my younger son, who loves to walk with us almost runs to stay tuned to our pace. So strange how you go from always walking with your significant other to falling naturally behind when you have kids. Of course, as the years in the marriage increase, the husband stops pausing when the wife stops besotted by trinkets in the shop window and the same applies to the wife who sees the husband almost hypnotized by some random gadget in the window.
We now throw impatient glances egging the other to move on while at a short distance. 🙂
Have you experienced something similar?
Rachna says 
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