It’s funny. When I first started running, in my late 20s, I wanted to have the gear. The kind that says, Yeah, I’m a runner – bona fide! I bought a belt that had a pouch for stuff along with hookups to carry water bottles on longer runs. Not too long ago, I got rid of that belt. For one, it was too big for my waist (turns out running consistently can have that effect). But more importantly, I was way over my fascination with running gear.
That doesn’t mean I don’t still use some. It’s just that I’ve gotten comfortable with myself as a runner to the point that I don’t care all that much what others think of me or my gear. So rather than a brand name hydration belt that I would, at this point, mainly be using for carrying my phone (which has my app that I use to track runs), I am wearing a sentimental item instead.
A fanny pack.
Not just any fanny pack though. This one is branded for the 1994 World Cup. If I recall correctly (and I may not, seeing as I was just 12 in 1994), my father and brother (and uncle? and grandfather?) got to go see one of the matches in Chicago. I got a fanny pack.
I don’t think I used it very much, if at all in the years between 1994 and 2014. Maybe even a bit longer than that. But I’m using it now for every outdoor run. Well, when I was still working in my office, I kept an office fanny pack for runs during work. It’s branded to my workplace, and I don’t have to worry about remembering to bring my fanny pack back and forth. (Yes, I have two fanny packs, I am the coolest.)
The object itself doesn’t have that much sentiment attached, I suppose. I didn’t go to a game, and I’m not all that into soccer (my dad is, and my brother played pretty seriously in high school for a while). But I like that I have this object connecting me to my past. A weird object. One that, I’m willing to bet, no one else in the city of Boise owns.
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| No mistaking my fanny pack for someone else’s! |
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| I bet there aren’t even that many of these hanging around in people’s houses in Chicago. |