I have been quiet again. But it’s not because I’m depressed.

It’s because I’m moving.

I hate moving. I hate it with a passion. I hate the packing, the boxes, the newspaper and bubble wrap. But there is one reason above all else that I dislike packing so much:

It reminds me of my physical limitations.

I don’t like knowing that I can’t do everything that anyone else can. I don’t like being reminded that my muscles have a limit to what they can do that is set far lower than anyone else.

It makes me feel inferior.

We’ve been packing all this week; box after box of belongings, bag after bag of clothes. After each new bag or each new box, I am reminded of the fact that I am physically disabled, as much as I would like to pretend otherwise.

My leg muscles protest going up and down the stairs, my back muscles start singing a glorious soprano aria only to be joined by my leg muscles who feel like singing a harmony. My shoulders throb in a beat, keeping time for them.

I know if I were to take my shirt off and find myself capable of turning my head to look at my own back, I would see my muscles jumping underneath the skin.

The pain has not be hot or fast or intense; it has been constant. My muscles are protesting in ways I didn’t think they were capable of. I can feel the ripple of them underneath my skin when before it would be a single jab to my shoulders, a hot kiss of hurt to my calves.

Now I wear it like a mantle. Muscles knotting together in some exterior puzzle that I am not given the answer key for. Just when I think I know how my body and my muscles will react, they surprise me with something else, some new way of feeling, moving, jerking, jumping.

I wonder if I will ever get the answer key? If I will be able to turn to page 105 in myself and see the black line that leads me to the centre of the maze?

Perhaps.

Thankfully though, I have had work to keep my mind occupied. Packing, working, writing, packing, working, writing; My mind cannot focus on the limitations of my body, on the movement under my skin.

Instead it focuses on other things and I can let my mind wander. I can dream of things, remember things, hold memories like gum drops on my finger tips or soft, clear jewels of rain.

Instead I pack and I work and I write, remembering, wanting, needing.

And I hope that, someday, I can view my limitations as unlimitations.

Perhaps then I will learn how to fly.