Dead Weight

I get out of the bath, hoisting myself up with hands on the sides, to sit on the edge.  Once I'm steady there, I grab hold of the dead weight of my right leg and slowly lift it up and over, setting my foot on the floor.  Then I pivot, hold the weight of my body up with my arms again as my left leg follows, careful not to put any weight on my right leg.

I look down at my thighs, both weak and withered.  As pain increased over the summer, my ability to use my legs steadily decreased--for months now no squats, no hiking, not even walking more than absolutely necessary.  That was all before surgery, but since then (even just in 3 weeks), the atrophy in my right leg is stunning.  My quad had to be detached and re-attached, and I haven't yet regained feeling in it.  When I stand up (weight on my left leg, of course) and let my right leg straighten, fire rages from my iliac crest to my knee.

Looking down at my scrawny excuse for a leg suddenly revives the fear that has been lurking but unacknowledged--that I'll never walk again.  I can't face it head-on right now, so I push fear to the side and get angry.  I'm mad at society that prizes lanky legs and holds emaciation as the desired runway look.  It has become so normal to diet and deprive and spin and run and zumba, all with the focus on reducing and shrinking and losing.  I know that there are those who would sign up voluntarily to accept doses of this pain if it would just make them thin.

Some would exclaim over how good I'm looking these days.  I must be doing well if I'm skinny, right? That can only mean that I have my life in balance, right? I can't believe how many stupid, shallow assumptions we make of each other based on these outward things, but we all do it all the time.  I don't think that most people guess by looking at me how pain steals appetite and replaces it with a stinging smolder.  My significant loss of muscle and weight is not an achievement to a smaller size--it is loss of strength and independence and competency.

I know I am envied for my thin legs, but I would trade them in a second for limbs of any diameter if they were strong, capable, and without this torment.  It is March and gray and muddy and rainy, and what I wish for is legs that could take me up a slippery, pebbly trail through dripping branches.  They would carry me up to see the spring thunder-melt coming down out of the mountains in the form of Snow Creek Falls or Copper Falls or Kootenai Falls.

So please do not envy my physique for a second.  Go run up and down a flight of stairs a few times--not because it will burn 30 calories, but because you are strong and competent and you are able.  I beg you to not believe lies about your body that make you feel worthless--don't you see how powerful your body is?  Don't devalue it because some idiot somewhere chooses bony limbs to represent beauty.

I'm working on being thankful (I have so much, still!), and trying to have hope that maybe by the end of the summer my legs will be back to doing their job.