Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Huge (in its own way)

A few huge things today.

I drove to the store. For the first time since... August, I think. I bought my wife a flower, the potato chips we both love, and the relish I've been longing for. Doesn't seem like much, but just being able to go to the store on my way home to satiate that "damn it, I want that relish" desire, is very, very, satisfying.

That was huge. In its own way.

I timed myself, walking ("walking," in quotes, as I'm coming to think of it) from my car to my office. Now, I haven't run a measuring tape, but just to give you a rough idea of the distance... oh, let's see. Imagine the width of a street with only two lanes (one each way) with barely enough room for cars to park on each side. Your basic suburban residential street's width. Call that one "width unit." Street is one, from street to truck in the parking lot is around one and a half, office to street is... let's call it two and a half. So, five "width units" distance. More simply, cross the street five times, and that's the distance I travel.

That took me seven minutes. I made two trips today, timed it both times. Seven minutes, to cross a two-lane street five times.

I used to walk miles per day. Now I take days to walk a mile. With a walker.

That's ... huge. In its own way.

A postscript: I have never been so glad to not being going down the Western-medicine path of the M.S. Highway than when I read this. It also seems huge, in its own way.

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