I walked with a cane!! I walked with my designer decorated beautiful cane around the mall and in stores. I sat and rested in those little rest areas with real furniture and enjoyed a peppermint mocha while I watched people shopping. I waited there for my family to do some running around. Ok I walk real slowly but the most important word here is WALK. with a cane! I know I was grinning the entire time and folks probably thought I had lost my mind. It was a wonderful experience to be just standing in the mall and at one point I walked to the counter and made a purchase just me and my cane. NO hanging on someone's arm or being pushed in the wheelchair. I even wore my purse. It was all I imagined it would be. Oh I bought some lotion at the counter. It felt like old times. And to be out at Christmas time with all the decorations and all.

It was wonderful and I am so happy that I am doing it now but it is also bittersweet because there were constant reminders that I am not the same and never will be perhaps and that is so hard to know while at the same time I am so happy that I am recovered to this point now which is so not where I am content to be when I just want to be normal again but it so nice to be walking that is a thrill. The experience was surreal. At one point the noise was getting to me with babies crying and the music seemed to be more than one kind, country and then christmas carols at the same time, and the place seemed too loud too chaotic to look at too. I thought I may have made a mistake and should go home. But I sat with a coffee and perhaps that caffeine helped me focus because then I was up walking and going into stores. I was feeling the vestibular stuff as usual but the cane helped me with the dizzy feelings so I didn't fall over or lose balance. I am ok as long as I can hold something or someone. The cane made it better than holding onto a person who is moving also. the cane was rooted to the floor.

I soon became accustomed to the sounds or maybe just got away from sounds of screaming and conflicting music but there were visual horrors to deal with. People seem to move at lightening speed. I know that I move slow but this is different because I just can't tell how fast they are going so when they pass me it feels so fast and I stop because it feels like they are going to knock me over. In fact they do seem to come too close but I can't be sure it that is because they really do or if I am wigging out about it. I can't walk with someone whizzing past so I always stop. Note to self: give extra room to people using canes or walkers instead of impatiently squeezing by them.

I also had a hard time with the decorations that I love like the blinking lights, tall trees that I want to look up at but that sends me off in a dizzy spell. the big wide space of the mall makes it hard for me to walk. LOL. Isn't that weirdest thing but it is true. I walk better in my small space than in a big space like a parking lot or the inside mall. I did better when I got inside a store. When there is so much to look at I get all spinning. Sometimes I am walking and then I just suddenly feel lost and floating like I need to hold onto something. It was good to have my family close by and I can't imagine going out alone but I want to. I was thrilled when they left for a while and I walked into a store on my own. I tried not to walk close to any display I may destroy lol and I felt so daring to be off on my solo mall mission. And then they were calling my cell phone wondering where I had gone! OMG it felt great to be someplace alone and no one knew where I was for about 15 minutes LOL! I had escaped!!!! Yep mission accomplished I bought lotions for gifts! I got one for me as usual too.

Then we stopped and got these milk teas with boba in them. Boba is my new passion. I know they are not on my list of 10 things to eat but I do it anyway occasionally. This was the day for it. I sat in a real chair with my own shopping bag I got on my own two walking feet and had boba.

I didn't listen when they told me not to over do it. I mean how do I stop having so much fun? I walked the whole way back when I should have listened and had the car pulled around but I just loved walking so much. I wanted to see more stores and it was a tiny mall but not to my hibernating muscles. I am still suffering stiff and sore muscles. I am using icyhot and stretches and of course pain meds but I can't walk much now. I am sitting here in my new christmas pajamas so who am I to complain. I had a wonderful time and I may do it again but hopefully with the sense to not walk so far so long.

That was a fun time and I got what I wanted for Christmas which was to walk in the mall, carrying my own purse and doing some shopping.

It was heaven.

But it was also the flip side of that because I know this isn't like ok I am fully recovered back to normal and this is seeping into daily life acceptance. It is sometimes embarrassing too because this vulnerable incapable self isn't how I usually roll. But I underestimate how I am viewed by others sometimes. I feel kind of ashamed and humiliated that I am like this ok even if it is irrational I do feel like I have failed something by becoming less than.... so anyway on one occasion my neighbor stopped and congratulated me on walking now and expressed admiration that I was up and getting out. On another occasion, a class cohort I hadn't seen much stopped and expressed admiration that I was still attending school. This helped me feel my progress as real and that I am really coming along. On the flip side--for me there always is one==I feel singled out noticed because I am the one that maybe isn't going to finish school now and the one with the sad happenings. I am so glad they notice and care and that means so much to me but I don't want this kind of attention. I wanted to be admired for more than stroke recovery LOL. I am greedy vain type here ok! I just can't describe how weird it feels to have people congratulating me on walking. walking. I took it for granted then it was the driving force of my life just to be able to take a step and not fall. But to walk for a substantial distance seemed impossible then and yet this accomplishment is so huge and it is for me but on the other hand it isn't sounding like it is much. Like they are congratulating me on still breathing. I guess they could do that too. This just all feels surreal.

But I will take my moment in that mall. Miss America never had such a lovely walk down as I did that day in the mall walking into the store all on my own. Just being out is an accomplishment in my current state. I seem to find fun at a lower threshold these days because a mall trip with my favorite boba or coffee is pure heaven now. I have this pain thing so I need to be comfy without constricting clothing. I go out in comfy clothes only. I get irritable when I am out sometimes and I don't like that part or that i have that in me. My family can irritate me beyond belief and they are often not kind when they deal with me but i know I can be miserable to be around until the pill kicks in sometimes. I still want to have fun though. They know it passes and then we have fun again but I often feel that I ruin it all the time and so who wants to be around that. Life gets simple and then complicated at the same time. But hey walking here. walking. walking walking. walking in these slipper-like shoes LOL!