SHE WALKS THE WALK

Last Saturday morning I woke up at my usual early time, plus one hour. On a weekday my alarm goes off at 6:00 am. This allows me one hour in front of the telly watching the local news while drinking my most deliciously addictive two cups of coffee. Then I have the time and inclination to eat a good breakfast, take a shower, get dressed, tend to Spider the cat, and mosey on down the very pleasant trail to my workplace.

I am a masochist, so I set the alarm on the weekends also. Same time, same place. Perhaps it is not so very torturous, as once it goes off ,I turn it off, roll over and enjoy the best hours worth of sleep known to mankind! After one hour of the deepest, dreamiest sleep, I wake up, ready to face a lackadaisacal Saturday. That might not be the right word because it implies that I lack spirit. Not true, I just lack the desire to leap about. In fact, it is the great day I go to my beloved Tai Chi class and learn how to move at the speed of a turtle:)

Once settled into my very own lazy-girl chair, sized just right for little people such as myself, with my coffee in one hand and the remote in the other, I engage my mind with the local news. I find out that this is the day of the MS Walk and I think that I should go and do it! So I start to leap about in a very unSaturday morning like fashion. Stuff my face with a bowl of Raisin Bran, jump in and out of the shower, pile on some comfortable clothing and venture forth to a part of Cincinnati that I have never been to before. Sawyer Point is right beside the stadium where multitudes of people gather in ritualistic fashion to peer and cheer for their local teams. I have never been near it, unless zooming by on one of the Interstates on the way to and from the airport could be considered a close proximity. I manage to get there, albeit late, without getting on the freeway. What's free about them anyway? With map in hand I start my walk. A couple of blocks or so into it, I start to wonder why hoards of people are coming my way, some returning my smiles and hellos, some in a world of their own that does not include me:( I make a more detailed inspection of my map, and discover that I'm am going the wrong way. I do many things backwards so this is in keeping with my MO. So I turn around and get back to 'start here' and head on out once more. Some ways along the correct route, I come upon a sign. It states 1/4 mile. Already my head is a bit woozy, it has been well over a year since I have done any real walking (grocery stores and malls don't count) and I wonder what was I thinking, I will never manage to do 3 miles. Then I think about how ten years back I would walk around Lake Perris every Saturday morning with my dearly departed hubby. I plough ahead, picking up my pace with a determination that I will do this! My second wind came on strong and I actually enjoyed trekking through downtown. It is a city much like any other city and I happily finished Walking the Walk.

One day, when they discover why this demylineation happens to those of us who have this disorder, they will find a way to reverse it's course. Sometimes I feel like they are spending more time concentrating on finding ways, expensive methods, just to slow it down. I walk the walk in hope that some one, some group, is actually trying to find out why!