A few young athletes were coming out of the back door of Barwis when I pulled up. There was no snow on the ground so I would be able to get out of my car on my own. As I was getting my chair down, I heard Mike’s voice. He met me by my car and I proceeded to show him how I get out of my car when I am alone. He pushed me inside and pushed me to the front desk to check in with Alyssa. As he pushed me back into the workout area, he told me that we were going to stand today. He asked me if that was okay and it was for me!!! Yay!!! Finally!!! As I sat and waited for my time, I could feel my legs begin to tighten. This fact frustrated me because I REALLY wanted to do something active today! I knew that I wouldn’t be able to stand if my legs were too tight.
Mike pushed me over to the blue table and I told him that my legs were tight at work and that they had just started to tighten even more. He loosened me up. As I laid back on my back, I asked him about the “Tron grids” because he had that look in his eyes – the one of searching in the muscle of my thigh. He smiled and said, “Nerd! Tron.” I laughed! I DO have a little boy who was 8 when Tron: Legacy was released! He stretched me some more and then asked if I still wanted to stand. I responded that, “Hope ALWAYS says to try… at least once.” He nodded and told me what we were going to do.
He looked around for someone to assist us and when he couldn’t find anyone, he looked at me and said, “It’s just you and me, like we’re dancing.” Okay. I smiled because I used to say that to Phil every time he put me in and took me out of the stander. Now, the blue table is low to the ground so I was nervous as to how Mike was going to get me standing. He didn’t have a problem. I could not get the heels of my feet to touch the ground and instead I was balancing on the balls of my feet. When I could no longer stand, I rested my forehead on his chest like I did with Phil. Then Mike would ease me back down onto the table. We did this 3 times and then my time was up.
I thought of the “Thinking Out Loud” by Ed Sheeran song and that first line, “When your legs don’t work like they used to before…” on my way home. I listened to the song repeatedly as I drove because Santa got me the CD for Christmas. That’s me. My legs don’t work like they used to and NOT that I was some GREAT dancer but I remember asking Jesse about dancing the first summer I came to Barwis. He said that would take time to regain. I remember seeing the behind the scenes/making of the video and the choreographer saying that now people can have the image of Ed dancing to that song, Now, we (Mike and I) looked NOTHING LIKE Ed and that lady in that video but I got that image of them dancing in my mind when Mike said it was like we’re dancing. I haven’t had that kind of control over my body in SO long but it was nice to think of that image anyway. One day.