Well, ladies
6:14 this morning. Both kids dressed. Lunches packed. I am two minutes from out the door and my daughter asks me if she can wear the other shoes.
Normal question. She is seven. She wanted the other shoes.
I said "We do not have time for this" in a voice that was not mine. Clipped. Flat. The one that makes her go quiet and look at the floor. She put on the first shoes. We left on time. I sat in the car and replayed it for eleven minutes. 😤
I do not bring this up because I want grace for it. I bring it up because my whole body locked when it happened. Jaw. Shoulders. And something I did not notice until I was at my desk two hours later: my ankles.
Both of them. Completely still. Stiff. I had been sitting with my feet flat on the floor, not moving, since I sat down. Which is how I sit every day, but I had never noticed it until Thursday because I was already paying attention to tension from the morning.
Here is what nobody tells you. Your ankles are a joint. They need to move. They are designed to rotate, flex, point. And most of us park them under a desk at 8 AM and do not move them until we stand up at noon. Four hours. No circulation. No range of motion. Just two locked hinges holding still.
Then you stand up and your calves are tight and your knees feel old and your low back is stiff and you blame the chair. The chair is not helping. But your ankles were not moving either.
The fix is stupid simple. Ankle circles. Ten each direction. Under your desk. Nobody sees it. Takes about forty seconds. 💪
I have been doing it between meetings since Thursday. Twice in the morning, once after lunch. It is not dramatic. But my calves are noticeably less tight when I stand up. My feet feel like they belong to me. That first step away from the desk stopped feeling like a wince.
Sonia sent me her lotion essay. I read it twice. I tried the warm-hand thing on my chest before a call because I was still carrying the morning and I needed my voice to come down. It worked and I was irritated that it worked, because I wanted a systems explanation, not a feeling. There is probably a systems explanation. I did not look it up. I just sat there with my hand on my sternum breathing slower than I wanted to and thought fine, Sonia, fine. ✅
My daughter came home with both shoes untied. I tied them. I said I was sorry about the morning. She said "It is okay, Mama, you were just in a hurry." She was not wrong. But the hurry was not the problem.
The problem was that my whole body was already clenched before she asked, and I handed her the tension instead of the answer.
Ankles, jaw, shoulders. They lock together. Start with the one nobody notices. Ten circles each direction. Under the desk. Right now if you are sitting. 🏃♀️
I will work on the voice.
