Two steps forward, a TBD number of steps back.

Learning to walk, at age 30. And yes, I’d like that seat on the train.

“How’s it going?”

“How’s the leg?”

“You’ll be on your feet in no time.”

“You’re not better yet?”

“Yeesh, how long has it been so far?”

“It’s a good thing your work likes you.”

“How are the medical bills?

Physical therapy is an interesting process. I used to enjoy working out, and even had a trainer for a hot minute, so it isn’t as if I’ve got an issue with rather fit individuals getting paid to have me sweat.

My pain tolerance is also on the higher side. I can push through pain, having run 10 miles of my second half marathon after I felt my leg twinge. I paid for that with 6 months of PT, but still, I kept my pride intact.

I’m not used to that being a result of learning to walk, again.

I’m normally a fast walker. I’m the woman who gets impatient behind you on the BART escalator when you dare linger on the left side of the stair (j’accuse!) I’m the sidewalk multitasker who’s tweeting a bad joke while motoring towards a post-work happy hour. With my head in my phone, I take pride in my ability to dodge through streets filled with ill-fitted suits and clicking heels. I can figure out when it is faster to bike than take the bus, or walk than bike. I used to run into work three days a week as the sun came up behind the Bay Bridge and all of San Francisco began to emerge from beneath its fog duvet and grab a cup of Blue Bottle coffee and a side of smug.

My family bonds over walking, a daily ritual that helps us digest meals, sooth our newborn children, get caught up with distant cousins we’ve been recently reunited with. Walking clears our heads, gives us activity, brings us outside. We bundle up in minus thirty, and shed our layers in Calgary’s brief summers. We’re walkers, we are, despite the fact we’re cursed with tight achilles and a tendancy to walk like penguins.

In high school, my boyfriend said I ran like a penguin on fire. Now I’m struggling to walk at all.

I’m that person at the far right of the walkway, going slower than you as you board your ferry. The one who is doing her best not to block anyone, or take up more space than she should . I take a half an hour to walk a block. With a cane.

And you know what? It hurts like hell.

Before now, I didn’t notice those around me, walking slower, with crutches, or a cane, or an unwieldy wheelchair.

I was too busy checking my email and cursing the slowpokes.

Did you know that toes can get tired? That sometimes the worst pain comes from beneath the light skin in the arch of your foot, or from within the sturdiest part of your heel? That gravity’s a great foe, causing swelling and sluggishness? That bed rest, elevation, ice, massage are not a splurge, or a lazy Sunday – they are life necessities one requires to actually move if you hope to attend a friend’s wedding and hobble-dance all night? That sometimes you have to pray to put on anything but a sneaker? Or to fall asleep without painkillers?

Despite the advice of friends who’ve been here and gone through this, I purchased a cane from Wingtip in San Francisco last week. Though I am able to walk unsupported now, I’m using it as a prop when I unsteadily get on a rush hour train and make eye contact with the 23 year old looking up Lady Marmalade lyrics on his MacBook.

Yes, I have a cane. Yes, like in the little stick figure above you on BART.

And yes, I’d like that seat, no matter how urgently you need to know Christina’s solo.

Baby steps, they tell me. Here’s to hoping baby steps get a bit easier.