"Hope"

Essay and photo by Monica Petter

I wrote this and entered it in Prevention Magazine's 'Why I walk' contest. My mom wanted me to write it, so of course I had to enter for her.


There is nothing like the adrenaline rush of a new sunrise. Every morning, my dog, Blondie, and I gear up and begin our ritual – walking. When I tell people that I walk 14 miles a week, they grimace asking "Why?" I always reply, “Because I can.”


I have been walking every day for 15 years - whether walking toward something or away from it. When I was 20, I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. It is a chronic disease with a very unpredictable course unique to each person. I changed many things in those years following my diagnosis, but one thing always remains, walking. “Because I can” has become my motto.


Walking is the one constant in my life that I can control. My pleasure, my time to listen to the music of my body, working properly or not, it is mine - beautiful. I feel peace in those moments when my spirit propels me to higher levels.


My urgency to live, to be, to do is like a wind up clock, ticking. When the ticking slows, my feet speed up, and I walk with the wind catching heartstrings and angel's wings along the ride. Of course, that slow tick is signaling that She’s back there, too. She’s following me, taunting me, threatening the very joys I touch at times with my fingertips. When She isn’t chasing me and there is peace. I see colors differently. They are much more vibrant in hue. I walk slower, getting the feel of my feet under my own weight marveling in the ergonomics of my body. I lie in a field of wildflowers smelling their sweetness, listening to the wind.


Although I’ve walked the MS tightrope thousands of times, somehow it is different each trip, each exacerbation. MS makes me walk proud and purposeful. She makes me live like this sunrise is the first one I have ever seen. She has given me a perspective I would not trade with anyone. She makes waking each and every morning an adventure most thrill seekers could never understand. My own body - my best friend, my worst enemy. Come, try walking in my shoes – but – give them back. I need them. They’re broken in just right. Each morning, I stoke my confidence. I rev my engine. I smile - for there are no boundaries. Only Hope.

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