I was walking into the building I work in, it was a Tuesday. Tuesdays are always a little weird for me anyway, but today was going to be a doozy.
I always find myself walking up the stairs to the fifth floor. Sometimes I tell myself it is for the exercise, sometimes I tell myself it’s because I just can’t stand the smell of the people I work with in that small cramped box of an elevator. At any rate I was making my way to the second floor landing and headed to the third , when a woman I only had spoken with once or twice asked me a question and disturbed the quiet I had going on inside my head.
“Why do you always walk on the balls of your feet?”
(Why do you seem to want to bother me with your incessant babble and attempts to get inside my head?) (would you prefer I walk on my knees, ruin my trousers, look a fool to everyone around me that I am forced to interact with?)
But instead I led with … “what?” She asked again rather hesitantly I felt, maybe a bit sheepishly, “why do you always walk on the balls of your feet?”
I, um I was walking on the balls of my feet? “Yes definitely, you don’t have to answer, not sure why I asked now, sorry to bother you…” she spoke to the ground.
No, I’m sorry, you just caught me unaware that I still did that.
It began in my early school days. “Oh” she said and seemed satisfied at the answer, but on I went.
My parents were loving, in their own way, but were not sure of how to parent at all times, or situations. It seemed easy to provoke my parents into punishing me, I never even really had to try. It might have been a look given, or a slight imagined. They were young and maybe that was all it was. They didn’t seem to grasp that I was a child, they would yell at me to act my age, but they meant act as we do, we are adults and you don’t see us acting like you are doing. Shape up boy. Why do you act this way, why are you doing etc…
My childhood was a very long set of days piling up into an eternity of missteps and wishing I knew how to avoid my mom and dad.
My parents had a sort of “go to “ one size fits all punishment to make me into the better man I could be.
It was simple, if painful. They would verbally berate me for whatever shortcoming they saw, and then force me to poke thumbtacks into the heels of my feet. The amount of tacks and length of time to walk around with them fluctuated both with their shared mind for my betterment and the assumed atrocity I had authored.
So it would be that I might push a couple into my heels on a Sunday night before bed, and then slip my shoes on over them Monday morning, ready for school. Sometimes i would only need to have them placed under my heel for an hour or so if i only had spilled salad over my bowl onto the dinner table, or forgot to tell them how much i appreciated their care and loving of one such as myself.
Teachers, students, random folk i met on a daily basis thought me odd, maybe being “somewhere on the spectrum” or just eccentric. They never thought that maybe my parents were having me shove seemingly random numbers of thumbtacks into my feet and then forcing me to walk through my day.
They always told me this punishment was to make me a better me, a stronger me, the me that they had thought they were getting when i was born. They also told me to never let others know about this punishment. I was assured others were given similar punishments for their wrongdoing, and they always went unflinchingly along with it, so i should too. Keep your face serene, your tears in check, if i could do the things they wanted , i could remove my reminders of being the better me.
So i would walk painfully through my time with my parents, heading towards the bus if it was a school day. Knowing i would only know relief if i could put one foot in front of the other. I soon learned that once i was out of their sight, i could rise up and walk on the balls of my feet. It took some of the pressure off, and i would still be a good boy, taking my punishment for my supposed trespass. It was a long time before anyone thought to ask why i walked the way i did so often of the time. Once the person asked why i walked the way i did, i felt fear and a release. It was a neighbor who i had been told to steer clear of by my parents, because of her “weird habits”. Turns out they were just worried they would be caught abusing me for their own sense of fun and merriment. My parents were right to be worried about her, i explained why i walked the way i did, she was a little mortified and called the authorities. The next time i saw my parents it was in court. There were a ton of scary official people all listening to my parents, and then me.
By the end of the court session i was pretty sure i would never have to see my parents again. I was right enough. They talked and shouted and backed themselves into a corner. I showed my heels as exhibit A and B.
I was roomed in a hospital for a while , until the courts found someone who would properly care for me, and be patient with my mannerisms learned from my time with my parents.
I had to learn to trust others and walk with heels to the ground and realize i was a normal loving human being. Sometimes, like a childhood stutter, the raised walk comes back to me, most of the time without my even realizing it until later.
Thanks for pointing it out, now if you’ll excuse me i am going to be late for work. Enjoy your day.
