January Is For Running In Jeans

I see you, kid.

I looked to my right for the cops, but there was no vehicle in pursuit of the kid. No sirens trailing him as he ran. He was in his teens, with shaggy, thick hair that was overdue for a cut. The graphic on his ratty, blue, oversized hoodie was no longer discernible, and his beat-up tennis shoes looked deflated and gray from sun and dirt. Oh, and jeans. He was wearing jeans. The jeans were the reason I looked for the cops. This kid was running for his life—in jeans. Unless you’re escaping authority, there’s no good reason to be running in jeans.

As I made a left onto the parallel block from my home, the traffic in front of me slowed so that I was in pace with the kid, and I now noticed he wasn’t looking behind him. There was no imminent threat to escape, as far as I could see. He was panting heavily, cheeks more red than they should be for the moderate Southern California temperature. I made a left, still stuck in traffic, and saw the boy keeping pace in my rear-view. His body looked like spaghetti—like if one of those gas station inflatable floating tube men was training for a marathon.

With traffic going nowhere, he eventually caught up to my car and stopped, walking up the driveway to one of the more dilapidated homes in my area. I knew this house. I’d passed it many times, and it always made me sad. They left their screen door open during summers, and I couldn’t help but notice the one Ikea lamp, single recliner, and folding TV tray table being the only furniture that inhabited the large living room. A large charcoal pit mix would attack the screen door and bark as I walked by, which was always followed by an angry woman screaming her lungs out at the dog, who’d interrupted her sitcom.

The kid hunched as he walked toward the porch, the screen door open, and I could hear the sound of an argument coming from the home. If I heard it, then he heard it, and averted himself from the sound, deciding to catch his breath in the driveway rather than enter the noise. And I looked at the kid, drenched in sweat in his baggy jeans, frayed at the bottoms, and I suddenly remembered that it was January, and it all made sense. Because that’s what January is for. January is for running in jeans.

January is for beginning before you know where to start. It’s for running out of your element because you’ve run out of excuses. It’s for starting a love affair with the sensation of being out of breath. It’s for discomfort. January is a month for making a mess and making sense of it later. It’s for ignoring what they have and working with what you’ve got. Because you have to start. Because you have to do it right now. It doesn’t matter whether there’s a finish line, or a detour, or a full-blown crash up ahead. January is not for fresh Nikes and moisture-wicking shorts. January is for whatever you have in your top drawer. January is for running in jeans.