Go Out With a Bang The only time I use the car GPS now is to navigate to an emergency room because I’m too afraid to look at a map again. All that walking has been good for me — it’s recharged my stamina and it helps me keep in shape, but even with my newfound ability to walk, I still need the handicapped bathroom to change into my workout clothes. Without the car, I’d have to ask for directions a hundred times a day. One of my close friends was in his nineties and had to retire from driving because he developed a blood clot near his brain and lost all of his mobility. He’d been driving since the 1950s and he couldn’t get used to life without the freedom of driving himself wherever he wanted. The best cure for claustrophobia is the one we create with ourselves. — Stephen King A former college friend who was recently let go from a job due to an on-site car crash didn’t get the message right away, but once he did, he quickly resigned himself to the facts and became an avid walker. He loves to stop for lunch and take it on his own schedule and he even rides his bicycle down the street. He says he feels like a kid again. And you know what? He really doesn’t mind walking — even though he’s an avid mountain biker. It’s a good thing for me that I live in Los Angeles, a walking city — and not New York City, where the only places I can find to walk without a phone or my husband are on the edges of Central Park. I’ve started thinking of what I’m going to do when my husband finally gets sick of me and moves out. I’ll have a lot more time to walk around Los Angeles. Maybe I’ll even try to make a career out of walking — maybe an internship with the Los Angeles Walkers. I wonder what that would look like? I hope someone asks. This is the final chapter of my story. I’ve been living the same story over and over and over since I was 14 and I’ve decided to change the ending. I’m tired of being locked up in this small, stuffy room with no air and no friends and no hope. I want to be released. I am ready to walk, in all my glory, in all my glory. I will never fear and I will always know that I’m a beautiful, beautiful woman. And when I walk out of this prison, I’m going to hold my head up high and I’m going to let it be known that this is the last time I’ll be locked up in this stifling prison — forever. — Susan Paretts This piece was originally published as a memoir in the LA WALKER blog in 2009. I hope my words inspired you to get out of your wheelchair. Thank you for reading! — Susan ABOUT SUSAN PARETTS: I began writing my memoir at the age of 38 after a devastating diagnosis with stage IV cancer. From that time on, I worked tirelessly on the manuscript — which became my greatest teacher — writing and redrafting until the day I passed away. I wrote this piece while staying in a locked psychiatric ward after being unable to walk without fear and I wrote most of the book while staying at a Holiday Inn in Santa Monica where I had to lock myself in my bedroom and never answer the door. (My husband called this room the “Do Not Disturb” room.) I finished the first draft of the book while taking steroids and sleeping in the basement on a mattress in a bedroom with five other patients and no lock on the door. In May of 2003, I was released from the psychiatric hospital and went to live at the Hotel Del Coronado. I held the title of world’s longest free-standing writer from May 2003 until I died in October 2003. On May 16th, 2013, a year after my death, my husband and I discovered all the chapters — now complete — of my memoir. I finally got to walk out of that locked room into freedom. The following are excerpts from my memoir, The World’s Longest Free-Standing Writer: A Memoir of Struggle, Strength and Survival. The World’s Longest Free-Standing Writer Chapter 6: The Beginning of the End The first time I saw the therapist was late one Friday afternoon in June. She was young, petite and pretty. I’d never been in therapy before. My husband drove me in my old station wagon from Pasadena to Long Beach for the session, even though it meant driving through the heart of Los Angeles. The therapist offered a chair, a cup of tea and a few minutes of silence before she went into her spiel. “I want you to know that I’m not your therapist,” she told me. “I’m just some woman, some stranger, who will listen to your story. I’m just someone who’s willing to listen, because I know you have a story to tell.” The following excerpt is from Chapter 6: The Beginning of the End. “I used to have a dream,” I began. “It would have to be a big dream. I would be lying in bed and I would feel like I was flying. It started with my hand going out of the window of my bedroom, into the air — past the roof, past the roof — and it felt like an instant of weightlessness, like I was flying up in space. Then, slowly, I would start to sink back down into my body, my backside hit the mattress and it felt like I was being pressed down by gravity. Then there was an instant where I would fall through the floor and then I would be weightless again and then I would hit bottom with a thud, but by that time my hand was already reaching for the next window, the next room, and it would start all over again.” Chapter 10: Life With Two Sides In mid-February, the same week I had my first appointment with the psychiatrist, my husband and I discovered that the cancer had metastasized to my right groin area. My doctor ordered more treatment with radiation and he prescribed morphine. As soon as he did, I felt a deep sadness inside and I found myself shaking. I had heard too much about morphine. My father died of colon cancer and the last thing I wanted was to suffer the same way he had. I didn’t want to suffer at all. The following excerpt is from Chapter 10: Life With Two Sides. “Cancer feels like it steals your life, just as you’re about to enjoy it. It steals away your youth and your health and your strength and then you live the rest of your life without it. But it doesn’t have to be that way,” the doctor said. Chapter 12: Death, The Last Stage of Suicide The following excerpt is from Chapter 12: Death, The Last Stage of Suicide. “At least I could get rid of my cast of arms and legs and hands,” I thought. “I can still get up in the morning and breathe air. I can still take a shower. I can still feed myself.” “I’ll buy one of those little hand blenders that you see advertised on TV. You know, the ones with the plastic blades and the silver plastic attachments that you put in your mouth and then you squeeze it like a handle — that’s right, a handle — and it has an adjustable nozzle and you pump it like this…” She squeezed it like a little handle. “Can you imagine what it would be like if I put my left hand on this nozzle? It would be like pumping gasoline.” “That’s a great idea. Why don’t you give that to your husband and he can use it to go down to the men’s room.”