My Daily Step Count

I recently read an article that made me feel like I’m surely going to die any day now. Reading that article was  probably supposed to make me feel energized and hopeful. But it had the opposite effect on me. 

The article was entitled, “Ways to Increase Your Daily Step Count.” It said, 

“One of the simplest ways to ensure you stay active is by increasing your daily step count. Walking is a low-impact exercise that can significantly improve cardiovascular health, aid in weight management, and enhance mental well-being.” The article reinforced something I’ve often heard before, that a lot of people (especially old folks like nme) are quite diligent about keeping track of the number of daily steps that they walk And they try to increase that number every  day for all of the health benefits listed above and more, But it’s easy for me to keep track of my daily step count. It’s zero. And it’s been that way since 1973, which was more than 50 years ago. At that time, I was an inmate at a state-operated boarding school for cripples that I call the Sam Houston Institute of Technology (SHIT). Several times a week I was sent to the physical therapy gym, where a therapist would put my leg braces on me and stand me up so that I could walk a few steps in the parallel bars.  My crippledness had gotten to the  point where a few steps was about all I could pull off. So on this day, when I sat back down in  my wheelchair after struggling to take a few steps, I felt stronger than ever that this ritual was pointless. I didn’t care if I kept walking or not. The day was coming soon when I wouldn’t even be able to take a few steps anymore. Why spend all this time and energy just delaying the inevitable? So I decided right then and there that I wasn’t going to take another step until further notice. And here I am more than 50 years later. I wish that I would have made note of the date on the day  that I decided that I wasn’t going to take another step until further notice. But I didn’t realize at the time that it would become such a significant day in my life and one that I might want to celebrate each year. Nevertheless,  according to that article, since I haven’t taken a step in more than 50 years and probably never will again, I should’ve been dead long ago or at the very least I should be fat and riddled with cardiovascular disease and hopelessly depressed. But I’m not any of those things. I must be some kind of freak or something.

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