The Change: 25

 Sneakers Don't Lie
 (This is an ongoing story. If you want to start at the beginning, click here.)

There are few things as flawless as the body of an 18-year-old boy (except maybe for an 18-year-old girl). Still, I watched AE trace her finger over my son’s musculature, pointing out twists and torques I had never noticed before.  Even if I had noticed them, I wouldn’t have mentioned them to him; he would think I was criticizing him.

I first considered bringing him to AE a while ago. I’d picked up his running shoes to move them from their unsightly pit stop at the front door to their proper home in the mud room.  For some reason, I flipped them over and looked at the soles.  They were worn around the outer edge, the bright blue rubber having given way completely to the white rubber undersole.  From looking at his shoe bottoms, it would appear that only the outsides of his feet ever struck the ground.

If I'd said something about the shoes to him, he would have accused me of dissing the way he runs.  So, of course, I said nothing.

Weeks later, he began complaining of knee pain.  For the past few years, my son has run 6-10 miles a day most days and he worries that his knees are going to degenerate before their time. I took him to the chiropractor who gave him some stretches to do – and that helped a bit – but I worried that his sneakers were telling a story that shouldn’t be ignored.

“I want to take you to AE,” I said to him one day.

“I don’t want to end up like you,” he said.

Yeah, I don’t want him to end up like me either. I've struggled for months about whether to introduce him to this process.  AE assures me that most people get this work done without incident, and as impossible as that seems from my own experience, I do believe her.

The other day I heard a man in the supermarket telling the cashier that his daughter was going in for a knee operation. The guy wasn’t much older than me. His daughter was a runner. I don’t want my son to end up like her, either.

Aside from seeming a little more comfortable than he should having two women appraise his underwear-clad physique, my son’s session was relatively uneventful. He said that mostly it was relaxing and he fell asleep.  No tears. No karma shifts. Just some regular old bodywork that made him feel “more grounded and steady” on his feet when he got off the table, much like I expected my own process to go.

I don’t usually live vicariously through my children, but on this day, I was really wishing his experience were mine.

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