ROPEIK: Walking the walk

I walked two miles this weekend. I know, right? Okay, you’re probably thinking, “Big deal. I walk that far from home to campus every day.” But do you do it on crutches? I thought not. Now you’re thinking, “Oh, so you’re just a lunatic.” And to that I say – yes. Yes I am.

Ill-advised as my epic journey may have been, however, I have no regrets. In fact, it was an illuminating experience in a number of ways. This was mostly due to the setting in which I did the walking – the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear on my front lawn, the National Mall. Accompanied by a few friends from high school and a majority share of the editorial board of this very newspaper, I braved the crowds, crowds and more crowds and attempted to do my part to take it down a notch for America.

Unfortunately, the scene was pretty much completely insane, and I found my crutching skills facing trial by fire in their first legit foray into the public eye. In physical therapy the preceding day, I had practiced being jostled around and having my crutches kicked, and unsurprisingly those turned out to be highly useful preparations.

What I learned on Saturday was that large crowds of people tend to be fairly single-minded in their objectives. Their strategy: stand as close together as possible, attempt to surge rapidly forward to their collective destination with no regard for human life, do not yield to neighbors and take no proverbial prisoners. Even with my little phalanx of comrades standing around me and attempting to give me and my crutches enough space for me not to impale everyone in the area as I walked, I found that I didn’t get a ton of sympathy from the rallying hordes. Well, I got it in the form of “man, it would suck to be on crutches today,” but not in the form of the sympathizer getting the eff out of my way before I face-planted.

It’s interesting to observe the ways in which the presence of a mobility aid changes how the user of that aid is viewed. Friends who have witnessed my recovery since the beginning fully understand what they’re dealing with when they’re around me. I’m not just on crutches &- I’m actually recovering from partial paralysis. Right now, I actually look like I’m doing pretty well. But they also know where I’m coming from and how far I’ve come since day one, as in no-movement-at-all day one.

Other friends, like the FreePers who stayed at my house for the rally weekend, have been in the loop on my progress, but hadn’t witnessed it firsthand until last Friday. They understand my situation in theory, but to just see me walk around now, I look like I’m pretty much getting on fine. And for the rally, full of people who don’t know any backstory, people to whom I’m just a girl on crutches who might have sprained her ankle, my mom actually expressed concern that I didn’t appear disabled enough to get along safely.

I think that there’s got to be give and take. I have to go through life conscious of the fact that I can’t do everything the way I used to, and conscious of the fact that people are going to view me in certain ways. Maybe, if they know a lot, they’ll be pretty skittish; maybe, if they don’t know much, they won’t be skittish enough. For my part, I’m coming to see that a lot actually could be the same as it always was, even though it’ll never quite get all the way there. I hung out with people from college this weekend. I went to a party. I walked around D.C., went to a museum and rode the Metro. But I can’t ever fully think of myself the same way, even if I’m doing things I have always done.

To friends, I’m the same person I always was. To strangers, I’m the girl with the bum wheel. To myself, I suppose I’m a combination. I haven’t yet managed to assimilate the changes I’ve undergone into my self-image, though I guess I will in time, either when I forget what I was like before or if I become that way again. I know I haven’t changed as a person, really. I just walk differently. But that’s no small thing.

In any case, the adventures will continue this coming weekend when I make a pilgrimage to the holy land &- that is to say, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando, Fla. Here, of course, getting to the front of the line is a priority, so I may be renting a powerchair. There’s a time and a place to act and attempt to feel normal, I’ve come to see. And that time and place is not going to be when I am hell-bent on getting into Ollivander’s to try out wands.

P.S. &- don’t forget to vote today!