Bust a Move

It’s time for me to bust a move, again.

Walking has always been my thing, whether it was my escape or my salvation.  At first, I’d “take a walk” when I was running away from home, at age five, with a little suitcase in hand.  Later, I learned walking would allow me the quiet time I craved to have my creative thoughts and bright ideas.  I’d make my big plans, groove out to music, and perhaps most importantly, walking would calm me down when I was upset or pissed off, and being a Sicilian, I got PISSED OFF, especially since my life had thrown me a lot of challenges and obstacles.  Walking just instantly makes me happier, and there has been rarely a day I haven’t walked in my entire life, except for this past year with some health things going on, like neuropathy pain and my hysterectomy recovery, although the hospital did have me walking at 6 am the following morning, those bastards.  But you know what I mean – I’m … just a walker.

I learned to walk everywhere as a kid, mainly because I never had a bike until I was in college.  When my friends would go for a bike rides, I’d have to walk or jog along side them if one of their extra bikes was already in use.  My mom was not one of those mothers who would drive me all over the place, especially since she was a raving lunatic when it came to driving, and a nutty unmedicated bipolar the rest of the time.  To this day she still brakes at every intersection, every single block.  When she had to drive me to college at Michigan State, it would take us three hours to get there, more than twice the normal time.  But as a kid, she seriously charged me $2 for a one-way ride, which I couldn’t afford unless The Big A was with me.  But, when The Big A was with me, the price then went up to $4 total, $2 a piece, which of course The Big A paid, but we didn’t always get our money’s worth.  My favorite memory of my mother’s driving was when The Big A and I had been stuck without coats on a cold and rainy November school night, about a mile away from home, and we were forced to call my mom to come get us.  Not only did my mom’s 20-year-old car have no floor in the back seats, but on this night it did not also have working windshield wipers, so she and my brother had to roll down their windows, and pull the heavy rope that was tied to each blade.  We got soaked from the open windows, and the ride took us like 30 minutes because she could barely drive with one hand, with all of her stops at each block, not to mention the water splashed up from the floor, where we already were holding on to our feet in the air above where the car floor was supposed to be.  If we had walked home, we would have been drier, safer, and less soaked.  I once told this story to a college friend who laughed for over an hour, so trust me, the story is even funnier than it sounds.  So, needless to say, I learned sometimes it is just easier to walk than ask for a ride.

I walked everywhere until I was 25 years old and finally got my driver’s license.  Oh, how I was terrified to learn how to drive, especially since I had been the passenger in a number of near-death car accidents.  Plus, the first two times I ever tried to drive I nearly crashed both times, but I suppose it was because I was blind as a bat and went by the name Squint until I got contacts at age 16.  Walking in high school wasn’t a problem, as my friends lived close and my boyfriends always had cars.  But at college, I had spent years walking between 40 – 60 miles a week, walking all over campus, especially since I always managed to live far away from campus and work.  I did get my first bike ever during my first week of college, but on the third day I was hit by a chinese dude in front of Brody Complex who managed to drag both me and the bike without noticing, and the bike was never the same since, very hard to ride.  I mainly walked, or friends occasionally drove me to class or work.  My last year at State I moved eight miles away from the bar I worked at, and my friends basically banded together and forced me to get a car, because they knew it was time.  I was completely terrified, as I grew up with that crazy lady driver and had no idea how to drive, even though I somehow passed my driver’s test at Secretary of State.  I think the guy just felt pitty for me because my friend forced her way into my driving test and she kept telling me not to crash her car since she had just crashed it drunk-driving three months earlier, and her dad would kill her if she had to get it fixed again.  I lived at State just three more months before moving to Las Vegas, and I never once drove on campus or downtown East Lansing once I got that car.

Life has just come full cycle for me, because last month we had to go down to one car, and I am hoofing it back and forth to my volunteer jobs.  With my husbands schedule, there really isn’t a way for me to drive him back and forth to work to keep the car at home, trust me, it is a long story.  I don’t really mind that much, because I can walk anywhere in town if I need to go somewhere.  When we have events, then it’ll suck trying to arrange four people’s schedules, but we will cross those bridges when we come to them.  Truth be told, I’m having a really hard time walking right now, because my knees and back are killing me.  But, I just tell myself “too bad” and I’ve begun my hard-core spring training this week, but I’m moving pretty slow, according to the hubs.  I still walk, because I know walking will make me feel better in the long run.

I’m a little broken down these days since I have Degenerative Joint and Disk Disease, and it is everywhere – my feet, my knees, my SI Joint (The spot where a tramp stamp would go) my L-Spine, my C-Spine, and my hands.  I’ve got bone spurs in both of my feet and one in my neck, and I need spine surgery in two places because I have seven disks that are torn, bulged, and/or herniated, and one of them is also pushing on my root nerve in my neck.  I even wore leg braces for 18 months until my doctor found out it was making my knees worse.  Oh, I have Fibromyalgia, too, so I have to worry about weird pains from things like my shirt and pants touching my skin.  Seriously.  I know that sounds nuts, and trust me, it makes me feel nuts, but it happens to me daily.  Right now almost every piece of clothing I wear is plushy or soft or smooth.  I can’t do heavy, tight or polyester.  When I found this sports bra for $10, I could have died, because it is soft, supportive, yet loose, and still manages to give me a decent-looking rack.  Thank you Walmart!

I had to update my walking clothes, because the last thing a girl wants is to feel more miserable when they already are miserable when they walk.  I realized I had two pairs of Nike’s, and one pair was three years old, the other was five years old.  I keep my clothing pretty nice, so you’d never know it by looking at them.  I bought a new pair (at a bargain price, because I am the bargain hunter) and when I walk in them it feels like heaven.  I had forgotten that cushion-y feeling Nike’s give me, and it was the best $ I’ve spent all year.

 I also want to walk more for fun, because I am tired of being in this house.  Naturally, my iPod died the same week I had to turn in my car, so I had to get a new one, because I can’t walk that long without music.  I’m so mad, because this was my original iPod, so it was only a few years old.  I suppose it was time for it to die, because they don’t build things to last.  I have a stereo at my mom’s house that is twenty years old that had been moved all around the US, playing at 10 pretty much 24/7, with beer and booze spilled into it a million times.  But an iPod that is built with ”modern technology” only last six years, so go figure.  I got the iPod Touch, which is the love of my life, but the 8 Gig didn’t go very far, so now I’m mad I can only squeeze in 900 songs.  Here she is, in my fancy arm band that was $5 and it fits people like me who suffer from “fat-arm syndrome,” or FAS.

And, here are the best pair of pants I have ever worn.  I need like 15 more pairs and I really wish I was rich so I could buy some more.  Since I lost some weight over the past year, all of my workout clothes are either from 2003, 2005 or are a size fat.  I’m still wearing all of them because I don’t really care about them being faded or baggy, because no one sees me, but still, I needed one cute outfit, for those days when I expect to run into people, because, I always run into people.  My goodness, did I ever find the best feeling pair of pants in my life.  Nike’s of course, but they were also on sale, because who the hell can afford their normal $50 price tag?  Nothing in my workout collection ever cost me more than $11.99 at Kohls, so I feel like royalty today when I put them on to work out.  Oh, yes … one of my volunteer jobs has a gym and I can work out for free, which is so cool, but totally killing my arse.

Walking is like this free, magical drug that helps prevent all sorts of medical conditions.  It improves a person’s health in so many ways, yet I don’t see enough people doing it, or at least in Michigan they aren’t, since we are a state that loves our cars and we don’t have trains, subways, or even extended bus routes.  I’d have to walk maybe 10 miles until I could catch a bus, but then that bus would only take me to Detroit or by a mall or shopping center.  I’d much rather live like a New Yorker, taking trains and hoofing it.  I know some of you readers do walk or run daily, or do other forms of exercise, which is great, but I don’t understand why people, as a general rule, don’t walk more.  Heck, even my own kids whine when I force them to walk to the ice cream place, and it isn’t even a mile away.  Why have we moved away from walking and loving the outdoors to staying inside to exercise, or to just not exercise at all?  I rarely see kids outside playing in my stepchildren’s neighborhood, and rarely in my own, and I think back to my childhood in the 70s and 80s, when as kids we were basically forced to stay outside and play until the streetlights come on.  I’m not trying to be preachy, I’m just lamenting walking “falling out of fashion.”