Yup, I’m tripping, full on tripping.
Not the cheeky little stumbles outside a shop or the blasted foot drop by the car when I grab the handle and…..fall to the ground.
Nope. This is the time I really should wear my, ‘I’m Not Drunk, I Have MS’ t-shirt.
I’m tripping all over the place, and it’s embarrassing. I crashed into a wall (a wall) at the end of a lecture last week. Fail. I fell over in the newsagent’s, ‘blimey, these weekend papers get heavier every weekend, huh??’ Fail.
I took Halloween goodies to the nephews and tripped over a stray pebble. Meh. It’s getting less and less funny, if it ever was.
Why can’t I have an illness where I look completely normal? If there is such a thing.
I seem to have this weird, stompy walk, a bit like the models in Paris do on the catwalk, one foot overlapping the other. Difference is, they keep on going. And turn. With me, I overlap once and whayhey, I’m gone. Like Naomi Campbell without the, um, model looks.
It’s all the more desperate for me as I used to walk in heels. I know, me! High heels. I can’t speak of inches without wincing. Italian, finely crafted leather. Bee-Yoo-Tiful. Believe it or not, it has been remarked that I (used to) not only walk, I saaaaashay(ed). No longer. I wear flat boots for daytime and flat boots in the evening. In short, meh, frumpy.
I am often found staring at women in heels, with a longing bordering on the weird. D’ya see? Did Ya? Her??? In those – solemn, light a candle- heels? No?
Those days have long gone and as I take out my delicately-embroidered handkerchief in black, I regret. All those days I thought I looked absurd, ridiculous in high heeled boots, opaque tights and denim shorts, striding across that bridge in Austria.
If I could do it all again, I would.