Race ya

Here's what this feels like to me (on my bad days, which is sometimes every day):

You break your toes. All of your toes, your big toe and little toe and the ones that went to market and the ones that stayed home, and you break them randomly, cruelly, really painfully, and you're just dumbfounded. You can't understand why you keep on breaking toes, you look where you're going and step so carefully, you spend thousands on good shoes with ankle support and you read every last book on toe-break prevention, but you can't help it, the toes just snap no matter what you do. You get tiny little toe casts which give you momentary relief, but as soon as one of them comes off the toe breaks again, and I don't have to tell you that it hurts more the second time around. 

And then just when you can't take it anymore a magic genie doctor appears and tells you about a potion that he promises will make your feet "good as new," but it's halfway across the world and you have to walk miles and miles to get this stuff and there aren't any buses or trains that will take you even a block or two and this is the only thing you can take to heal (ha), this is the only way. 

So you start walking. I mean, what choice do you have. 

As you hobble towards your salvation, people are just sprinting past you. Running circles around your dilapidated depleted self, slapping you on the back and yelling "you can do it!" "just think good things!" "at least you're still alive!!" into the wind as they pass you up one, two, three times and without any effort. 

You're walking by the most gorgeous scenery in the world, these perfect idyllic towns, but you don't pay attention because you can't stop focusing on your stupid ugly feet and then you realize that you're focusing only on your stupid ugly feet and feel even worse about yourself because you can't even smell the flowers or feel the sunshine.

And months or years later, when you're almost there, almost to the finish line, you learn that this potion will probably help but oops, magic doc forgot to tell you that it isn't actually a guarantee, just a possibility, and sometimes people who take this medication develop bizarre side effects like maybe they grow an extra arm or can't ever blink again. And you've forgotten where you live and who you know and who you are, you can probably remember your name but everything else you just left on the long long road you've been walking on forever towards this one measly possible chance at comfort. And you're not looking good, you're gross and sweaty and hoarse, and eeeeeveryone can see you. Everyone. And they're all wearing sandals and their pedicures are perfect. 

This metaphor is completely on the nose (or the toes), I realize. I thought it was clever at first but now I'm not so sure.