Learning to walk.

I know it’s been a while. Several months in fact since I last wrote a five-minute-read. I haven’t been well. I chose those words carefully because although I haven’t been in hospital and I haven’t stopped working, I haven’t been well.

Over the last two years I've moved house, moved country, moved back again. I’ve started a new business, ploughed money in, watched it fail and closed it. I've negotiated a traumatic divorce, seen my son fly the nest, watched my parents grow worryingly frail and finally faced head-on my financial situation as it stands today, and as it might stand in the future.

And because it's every middle-aged woman’s default response to say, when asked, I'm fine, that's what I've been doing … until the day came when what I couldn’t say in words, my body said for me.

My knee swelled to the size of a watermelon. I couldn’t walk, bend down, even get on a bike. When I finally saw a rheumatoid arthritis doctor (because of tests that showed systemic inflammation) he took one look at my MRI and flung himself back in his chair, jaw gaping, an expression of horror on his face that would have given Edvard Munch’s The Scream a run for its money. I am not exaggerating, (great doctor but probably needs to work on his bedside manner). What he was reacting to, was the huge band of fluid around my knee joint, a direct response to an immune system in overdrive: my body attacking itself.

After this my shoulder froze, leaving me with an intense and constant pain that radiated down to my fingertips, so acute I couldn’t even lift my arm to throw a dart. This of course was the inevitable result of hours and days, weeks and months, spent hunching over a computer, hand fixed in a claw.

My feet were next.

I have, what I thought, was a fungal infection. I took myself off to a podiatrist, who doesn't agree, and gave me a long lecture about feet and the importance of them. (Who knew?) In the last decade you see, my feet have grown sideways, the toes are now twice as wide as the heel. They are like splayed hams: ugly. And although I've been to the doctor and talked about bunions, I have, on every occasion, been dismissed. This is how feet age, I was told, which translates to, Suck it up.

Other parts of the body age as well. Vaginas for example, and if you’ve read book four in the Midlife Series, A Midlife Marriage you’ll see my characters discussing and addressing this. In fact, just today I read an article in a mainstream newspaper that discussed vaginal atrophy. And thank goodness for that! For the fact that we’re not just sucking it up, that we’re talking about this stuff, and finding solutions.

Because as my podiatrist said, it is treatable. And what is more, if I don’t treat it I will end up with an uneven gait.

Now look … we all become our mothers. I feel the truth of this in my bones, in the way I stand up from a chair, the way I just stand … and of course I will always want to carry her with me, but not in every aspect: because at eighty-seven my mother looks like a boat on the high seas as she walks across the room tipping from port to sideboard, starboard to port.

So, here I am in July. Still limping, still unable to raise my right arm, walking like - if not a drunken sailor, certainly a tipsy one.

Something has to change. And it starts from the feet up.

My podiatrist believes that the problem is with toenails that have become too curly (upward) and now bruise as they rub against my shoes! She’s going to make them straight again, by strapping them down with tiny cute chains. I’ll have toe jewellery! Then she’ll send me off to get custom-made insoles, to even out the gait and stop the spread.

I’m on medication for the arthritis, and am at the gym doing a one-legged leg press, one-legged squat, one-legged …. you get the idea.

And, I’ve been to a sports massage therapist to start the long, painful and expensive process of unfreezing my shoulder. Jeez! Ever had anyone ‘pinch’ the tension out of a nerve for you? I was on the ceiling!

It's not going to stop there. Hopefully in the autumn I'm off to the dentist. How old was Tom Cruise when he got his brace? Well, that's what I'm thinking of doing now, because with a wayward front incisor, I’m turning into Nanny MacPhee.

Teeth, toes, shoulders, knees … But it's not inevitable. A little pressure, a new habit, focus and intention and you can straighten yourself out again. And yes it’s certainly expensive, but who else is going to do it for us? Aren’t we worth it? And so, onto my biggest confession: I have started counseling.

After the last couple of years, I'm not looking for blame, certainly not shame: there's been enough of that in my life. I'm just looking not to repeat … Because at fifty-eight, I can see clearly now a pattern that lies behind choices I have made in life. Choices that I don’t want to make again. And, surely that's a privilege of aging? The long-view.

Already these sessions have become the highlight of my week, this space in which someone actively listens as I begin to untangle the knots that have led me to where I am today. I expect and hope to write more about this in the coming weeks, but for now as I restart these letters, I suppose what I’m trying to say is that despite the physical challenges, I really do feel as if I’m getting back on my feet. The difference being, these are not the same feet that I’ve sometimes abused, often neglected, always taken for granted.

These are new feet, stronger and sturdier, better equipped to carry me and - most importantly - all ten toes will point in the right direction, just as they were when I first started walking.

Cary

And if you’ve enjoyed the read, please do pop a like or comment below. It helps keeps me visible.