Walking Is Not As Easy As Babies Make It Look

I mean, I think that the title says it all. Babies make it look all fun and adventurous and bouncy, and no one gets frustrated with a baby not being able to walk. Not even them (or if they do, then they don't remember it so it's like it never happened. Do babies even know what frustration feels like?).

Yesterday I got cleared to put full weight on my knee, which means "TOSS THOSE CRUTCHES OUT, SUCKAS, YOU BE WALKIN' NOW." This is a paraphrase of what my doctor told me.

Now, I am beyond excited to walk. I've been moaning and pining for the day where I didn't have to lug Galileo and Magellan (my crutches) around and be able to walk and do things and be active, because as fun as couch-potatoing it sounds in theory, after a few days it really sucks. Not even STAR TREK: TNG can make it un-suck. It just makes it a little less suckier.

Here's the thing about walking, though: you do it without even thinking about it. This is not a royal "you," a general entity that I consider myself a part of even though I used the pronoun "you." I am not included in this. Reader, if you can walk, then YOU are the "you" that I am referring to.

Get up and walk around the room real quick. Just a couple seconds. Go on.

See? You don't really have to think about it. You tell your brain "I want to walk in circles around the room" and suddenly you're doing it. It's not quite that easy for someone who has not been able to walk for a month or so. Believe it or not, you can actually forget how to walk, and so trying to walk is an awkward "wait, where does this go, do I move this now, how do I bend this, is this a weird angle to bend, is it heel first and then toe or toe first and then heel?"

Needless to say, this makes walking very slow and even more tiresome.

Maybe I can get a baby to tutor me.

-m