Punctuality is Overrated

I…

…am a dumb dumb.

Every now and again, circumstances arise that remind me that I don’t always make those very solid decisions I normally take pride in. Yesterday was one of those times.

Older kid had an interview in Manhattan at 11 a.m. I planned for the two of us to take the bus into the city and be there by 10 a.m., leaving plenty of time for either a leisurely 40-minute walk to the interview or a 24-minute cab ride. Only, for various reasons (one of which involved a 56-passenger bus backing out of a long, narrow parking garage and back onto the street in Easton, PA because construction had closed the exit of the garage unbeknownst to our driver), our bus didn’t pull into the terminal until 10:40 a.m.

What to do, what to do. Well, my plan was to catch a cab right outside Port Authority. But. An accident and a closed street left the area in gridlock. Fine. We’ll start walking and catch a cab later.

Spoiler: this was a monumentally bad idea.

I had encouraged the kid to send an email while were still on the bus, letting the foundation they were interviewing with know that the bus was running behind. But now, at 11 a.m., we’re still 20 minutes away from the building, no cabs in sight, and since I had planned on taking a cab, I never even thought to look into the subway system.

WHY HADN’T I THOUGHT TO LOOK AT THE SUBWAY?

And while I was certainly thinking about it now, there didn’t seem to be time to load an app, enter a destination, and navigate our way into the subway.

So the kid calls the foundation to let them know we’re still 20 minutes away and we continue to hoof it through midtown Manhattan until we arrive where we’re supposed to be. There’s really nothing we can do at this point, but power walk as though we’re middle aged moms whose only goal is to drop two pant sizes by 5 p.m. (Okay, one of us really is a middle aged mom. Fine.) The kid keeps asking if I’m okay since I never walk this fast nor this distance. Fine, fine! I’m fine, I tell them.

And I *really* thought I was. I was surprised at how okay I was doing. Huh. Maybe I’m not as disabled as I thought! Maybe I’m actually closer to being “normal” than I suspected. This is amazing! A miracle! I contemplate all the activities that might once again be open to me. Maybe I only *thought* I couldn’t do these things.

By the time we arrive at the foundation offices, sweat trickles down my back despite the chilly day. I drop off the kid and head to meet a friend just around the corner, where I am blissfully, finally, actually back on schedule.

A lovely lunch at a place called DIG (The avo grain bowl is to die for – an explosion of different flavors and textures – so much yum!) and we chat for a while before she gives me tips on which subway train I’ll need to return to the bus terminal.

But when we get up to walk back to where the kid has just finished interviewing, I realize my entire body is starting to seize in pain. Well damn. It turns out you can’t actually forget about a disability, even temporarily. And if you try to ignore that you have one, your body WILL remind you of it. In full.

With ibuprofen, I limp my way through the rest of the day — the walk to a smoothie joint, the walk to the subway, and the walk to our gate through the bus station. Two and a half hours on the bus helps, but there’s still a walk to the car. And then an hour drive home. And a walk into my house from the driveway. Dear God, why is my walkway so long? (It’s not. At all.)

Now, a day later, not a minute has passed this morning and well into the afternoon where I have not regretted each and every step of that 3-mile walk yesterday, 2 1/2 of which was performed at warp speed. Today, I’m wearing a knee brace and two ankle wraps, and if I could find a way to effectively wrap a hip, I’d have both of them wrapped, too.

There’s a full schedule of events on the calendar, most of which I will end up sitting in the car for. A doctor’s appointment for one kid, plus a figure skating lesson (older kid) , and a voice lesson (younger kid) this afternoon. Younger kid also gets inducted into the National Junior Honor Society tonight. There are seats, thank goodness.

I should know better than to do what I did yesterday. I’ve been dealing with this condition all my life, but never more so than in the last three or four years. My joints don’t work the way they should. I know this. So why would I even attempt to do what I did yesterday and expect that I could get away with it? I can’t.

As a result, I canceled the much-anticipated massage I had planned for Friday. Being in pain doesn’t make for a good massage experience. Hopefully, I can reschedule it for a week and a half when I’m somewhat recovered from my moment of stupidity.

Only. It’s not stupidity, really. It’s disbelief. It’s the desire to pretend we are something and someone other than who we are, to pretend that a dynamic disability doesn’t exist at all just because it hasn’t affected me profoundly in some time. So I’ll spend the next week paying for it in pain and in ibuprofen consumption.

Cheers!

Don’t be a dumb dumb.