Leaving Tracks

Today, our floors were cleaned and as I walked into the house, my dad warned me to take my shoes off so I wouldn't make tracks across the floors. Then I was looking out the window and realized the tracks I made yesterday (picture below) were gone. And it got me thinking about our tracks. The ones we leave physically and all, you know, those otha ones.
I started thinking about how we walk through people's lives and sometimes the path we leave behind sticks for a while, sometimes the waves never reach far enough to sweep it away, and other times it rains immediately after and the traces of us are instantly erased. 

I wonder how much our tracks really impact other people. I mean, I've been tracking mud all over Alex and Carolyn's paths for years, but how can you determine whether your path stuck with that guy you bumped into but thought was totally hot? Or if that cool kid at that one concert remembers your tracks? And what if someone throws you off course entirely but you don't have any effect on them at all?

As far as I can tell, there really is no way to tell where your footprints remain and where they've been brushed away. You can't turn around and follow them back to the origin, you can only keep moving forward.