A dear friend is in hospital this week after her legs suddenly stopped working. Last week she was seemingly healthy and fit, and now her legs don't work. No diagnosis yet but things seem to be pointing towards MS.
I've been thinking about her a lot, and what it would be like to go through that. I have another friend with MS, and his legs don't work either. More profoundly, I had a parent very disabled by lupus growing up, and as a kid thought that adulthood was synonymous with frailty; grown-ups can't move much - if they do, they might shatter. And in our house, if the sick parent couldn't do it, no one could - it wasn't allowed. So naturally my teenage rebellion was to take up running.
My idea of training was to go out and run as far as I could, as fast as I could, as often as I could, and keep going until I was too injured to push any further. I did this for about 10 years until I learned about to strength and other cross-training and how to do it (I'm looking at you FB). I've been running close to 20 years now, and rarely get injured any more. I've acquired my own disability as an adult, depression, but exercise helps manage it and most of the time I feel just fine.
But I haven't been fair to my legs. I would like to apologise to them, and give them the recognition they deserve.
Dear Legs,
You have carried me thousands of miles, up mountains, through forests, and countless laps around the block. Once you even took me on a hair-brained and absurdly fun 3-month cycling trip. You can do jump squats and jumping lunges just fine, and you are so unfazed by weighted squats that I wonder if maybe we should go buy heavier weights. You've been beat up again and again, but again and again you stoically heal.
So I am sincerely sorry that I have spent so much time recently complaining about how I had to buy bigger pants.
It's not you, it's my medication, it made me gain weight.
Remember that time I got really sick and lost 20 kg? And I thought you looked like little sticks that might snap off? And how my pants were hanging off of me and I thought I wasn't curvy enough? Yeah, I'm sorry about that too. You were trying your best.
The first 15 kg the medication put on were great; the second 10 kg are a little annoying, but I'm so much healthier now that this whole issue is ludicrously trivial. So I am also sorry about all the times I caught my reflection in the glass doors at work and was convinced my hips were comically curvy, like some sort of clown mirror. That glass was warped, kind of like my body image. No, the irony of worrying about being too fat after being dangerously thin has not been lost on me.
Today was too warm to run outside, so we stayed inside and did FB in front of the AC. We bounced around for an hour and a bit and you weren't even bothered. Dear legs, I am so proud of you. Whatever shape and size you are is exactly the shape and size you need to be. But more importantly, when I think about our friend laid up in hospital, with her debilitated legs, and how we've made it to our 30s without shattering, oh legs. I am so grateful. Thank you. Here's to many more years together.
A Letter to Legs
A dear friend is in hospital this week after her legs suddenly stopped working. Last week she was seemingly healthy and fit, and now her legs don't work. No diagnosis yet but things seem to be pointing towards MS.
I've been thinking about her a lot, and what it would be like to go through that. I have another friend with MS, and his legs don't work either. More profoundly, I had a parent very disabled by lupus growing up, and as a kid thought that adulthood was synonymous with frailty; grown-ups can't move much - if they do, they might shatter. And in our house, if the sick parent couldn't do it, no one could - it wasn't allowed. So naturally my teenage rebellion was to take up running.
My idea of training was to go out and run as far as I could, as fast as I could, as often as I could, and keep going until I was too injured to push any further. I did this for about 10 years until I learned about to strength and other cross-training and how to do it (I'm looking at you FB). I've been running close to 20 years now, and rarely get injured any more. I've acquired my own disability as an adult, depression, but exercise helps manage it and most of the time I feel just fine.
But I haven't been fair to my legs. I would like to apologise to them, and give them the recognition they deserve.
Dear Legs,
You have carried me thousands of miles, up mountains, through forests, and countless laps around the block. Once you even took me on a hair-brained and absurdly fun 3-month cycling trip. You can do jump squats and jumping lunges just fine, and you are so unfazed by weighted squats that I wonder if maybe we should go buy heavier weights. You've been beat up again and again, but again and again you stoically heal.
So I am sincerely sorry that I have spent so much time recently complaining about how I had to buy bigger pants.
It's not you, it's my medication, it made me gain weight.
Remember that time I got really sick and lost 20 kg? And I thought you looked like little sticks that might snap off? And how my pants were hanging off of me and I thought I wasn't curvy enough? Yeah, I'm sorry about that too. You were trying your best.
The first 15 kg the medication put on were great; the second 10 kg are a little annoying, but I'm so much healthier now that this whole issue is ludicrously trivial. So I am also sorry about all the times I caught my reflection in the glass doors at work and was convinced my hips were comically curvy, like some sort of clown mirror. That glass was warped, kind of like my body image. No, the irony of worrying about being too fat after being dangerously thin has not been lost on me.
Today was too warm to run outside, so we stayed inside and did FB in front of the AC. We bounced around for an hour and a bit and you weren't even bothered. Dear legs, I am so proud of you. Whatever shape and size you are is exactly the shape and size you need to be. But more importantly, when I think about our friend laid up in hospital, with her debilitated legs, and how we've made it to our 30s without shattering, oh legs. I am so grateful. Thank you. Here's to many more years together.
Love,
Lynna