My footprints have been following me around my whole life, but today they captivated my attention and showed me something new.

I am about to tell you something that you probably have never even thought about, but I have been conscious of, every winter for most of my life.

One day when I was a kid, someone said to me, “You have weird footprints!”

I turned around and looked into the snow, and noticed that my footprints were not straight at all, or even remotely similar to any other footprints around me. In fact, each foot had quite an extreme angle to it, pointing outwards.

I realized that because of my weight, I didn’t walk like everyone else. My hips, thighs, and legs were large enough that it changed my natural gait into something that now got commented on. There were multiple times that someone commented on it, each time making me more and more self-conscious.

For most of my life, whenever I would walk on any surface that would leave footprints, I have deliberately and consciously angled my feet more towards each other. I would do this for literally each and every step, without fail.

I couldn’t bear to have someone comment on my “weird” footprints.

I wouldn’t draw more attention to myself.

I didn’t want anyone to think about it, because then they’d think about me being fat, ugly, abnormal.

So I forced my body to walk differently. Like everyone else.

Today, I was walking on snow for the first time since reaching my goal weight, and I walked about 30 feet, and suddenly stopped.

I realized I wasn’t thinking about my footprints, and my brain knew that was wrong somehow.

I spun around, gazing at the snowy ground.
They looked just like any other set of prints; nothing radically different anymore. Still angled out, but nowhere near as much as they used to be. 

Yet another thing that has changed about my life that nobody else would ever have guessed. I wish I had an older photo for comparison, but who thinks about such things?

Well, I do I guess.