Girl Missing a Hubcap

Yesterday I needed to run.

It had been an eventful weekend, a roller coaster of emotions, and I wanted to sweat it all out and start fresh. I skipped on kickboxing, like I had planned, and drove straight home.

I left my iPod on the coffee table and set out. With no route.

I've recently discovered running with no music isn't as boring as I first thought. There are no tunes to pass the time, only the rhythm of my own breath. There are no songs to make me forget about my aching calves, only the sound of my keys clinking on the lanyard around my neck.

It's nice like that, in a way. There's nowhere to go but inside my own head. And sometimes, that's just where I need to be.

I made my way to 10th Street, and instead of taking my usual beeline to Piedmont Park, I stayed straight. Left on Monroe, right on some side street, all the way to Virginia Highlands. Just when I debated turning around and forgetting about running to Taco Mac like I had planned, I came up on a green Honda -- missing a hubcap.

My car has been missing a hubcap for three months. It's funny how you tend to notice things more when they relate directly to you. Like, for example, how many cars are missing hubcaps.

I recently broke down and ordered one on eBay, only for another to fall off the next day. I don't know where the hell they keep going, but sometimes, I get embarrassed for other folks to see I'm missing a hubcap -- well, two hubcaps. I wish my faults weren't so out in the open.

But, back to the girl in her green Honda. I slowed my run a bit when I passed her, just so I could listen to her belt out the lyrics to some ridiculous song. She never made eye contact, like most people you come upon who are singing out loud to themselves in their car. But, watching her wait at that red light, for some reason, made me feel better about my missing hubcap. And everything else that's so up in the air about my life right now.

It made me think that maybe sometimes it's OK if I'm missing a little something. Or if I'm unsure about something else. Or if I have no idea where the hell one thing or another is going. Maybe that's how it's supposed to be. Maybe if I wait a little while, the something missing will be replaced by something else -- like some great song I can sing along to.

I don't know. But, at the time, it helped me forget that sometimes I hate running. And it gave me something to ponder until I finally did get to Taco Mac.

Funny how that happens.