Today, my hips did not hurt. I went to a 4th of July BBQ. I frolicked with my kids. I tried a zip line swing.
But I still heard the bone-on-bone cracking when I got back home and changed.
Later this evening, I overheard Margot telling Henry, “Mom can’t play that with us. Her hips hurt.”
Hip replacement surgery is in my future. What else? A cane? A walker with tennis balls wedged on the front legs? A Rascal scooter?
It’s coming. Soon.
I discovered last week I can no longer walk a straight line, one foot in front of the other. Balance beam style, but on flat even ground. My hips just don’t have enough give.
I can’t even walk a straight line.
And I’ve still never climbed the Pyramids.
Who doesn’t want to?
Years ago, Michael went on a tour of Egypt. A man in the group was an amateur Egyptian scholar. I’ll call him Tyrone.
Tyrone went to Egypt to fulfill his lifelong dream of climbing the Pyramids.
Yet once the tour group reached the historic site, he could not scale his dream. An elderly man, Tyrone lacked the stamina and mobility to make the ascent.
All the other group members climbed the Pyramid. (Including the woman on the Egyptian tour who spent all her time photographing homeless dogs.) Tryone just waited at the base, rather stoically.
“Oh well,” he mused. “I guess I waited too long.”
Fast forward to this evening. Lying in bed, I told Michael, “I need to climb the Pyramids before my hips give.”
He and I both knew it was a metaphor.
The Egyptian Pyramids were Tyrone’s dream.
I don’t know what my Egyptian Pyramids are.
Maybe my Pyramids are just the pursuit of an ideal. Can ideals take material form?
Do my Pyramids exist somewhere, in actual physical contours? I hope so. I hope not.
Egyptian Pyramids: I’m coming for you.
The post I Need to Find My “Egyptian Pyramids” (True Sentence No. 20) appeared first on One True Sentence.
