2006-01-13 9:22 a.m.
The Fluidity of Walking

I’ve noticed as I walk up and down the Hill of Death everyday that I have lost the fluidity of walking I used to have. Walking for most people is an easy thing – it’s one foot in front of the other with a balanced, metered, rhythm. There is a grace and a rolling, and for women especially, a side to side movement from the hips.

Walking for me is not that. I’ve been hesitant to complain about the excruciating pain I deal with every time I hoof it up or down the goddamned hill, because I feel like I am nothing more than an overweight whiner who doesn’t really deserve to be allowed to whine about how much it hurts. I got me here, I have to bear down and deal with the pain that will get me outta here.

But this morning as I was walking, I was trying to walk a bit faster than normal – it was a shitty morning full of moments of rushing followed by moments of confusion as to what the purpose of going to the bedroom was. Mooki was being greedy for more time outside to sniff and investigate and I just really was not having the best of mornings so I left a few minutes late. So I was rushing down the hill and I noticed how I walk.

It’s all herky-jerky and uneven and off kilter. I take a larger stride with my left than with my right and on both feet I come off my feet as quickly as possible because it just fucking hurts to have the weight on them.

For a while last year I wore orthotics that were prescribed to me and cost me $478 (of which only $300 was covered and I really wish I had known that or I wouldn’t have bought the pair for my soccer boots AND the normal every day pair)and while they helped at first, after a few months, they did nothing to alleviate the pain in my feet and in fact, started making it worse. So I stopped wearing my orthotics and they sit in my closet.

I’ve been saddish lately – probably because I feel like an idiot still for buying that piece of shit car that is currently sitting idle in my garage or perhaps because I am poor and in debt and boo-hoo-hoo – whatever the reason I have been saddish lately.

I’ve been concentrating fairly hard on my weight loss goals paying a lot of attention to what I am eating, eating properly and on schedule, exercising because I have to… and I think I am hitting the wall that says “I don’t want to do this anymore because it’s easier to go back to my old ways than it is to come to terms with the truth”.

My feet and ankles and, to an extent, my knees, hurt so damn much that no amount of Tylenol Arthritis is helping and I get up in the morning and I am HOBBLING to the bathroom. After a while I guess I get used to it, because it doesn’t hurt any less but I am able to put a bit more weight on my feet. And then I walk down that motherfucking Hill and I’m spazzy and herky-jerky and useless and old ladies are passing me as I walk because I cannot walk any damn faster.

Ross and I walk places together and he constantly has to stop and wait for me or is walking three steps ahead of me (which makes me really fucking angry) because my pace of walking is so slow and laboured.

I hate it, I hate this. I hate being a cripple and being this… spazz who stutters and stumbles down and up the hill everyday.

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