Crooked Legs

        I tried to catch myself, but only managed to catapult down those steps like an awkward bouncy ball that rolled and bounced in a haphazard, unpredictable path for what seemed like an eternity. With every roll down those steps, I could hear the crowd gasp in a collective “ohhhhh” and could feel my dress ride higher up on my hips.

I was born with crooked legs. I am told I first learned to walk while wearing metal braces, very similar to those the main character wore in the beginning of the movie Forest Gump.  Mama used to tell me I was “knock-kneed, pigeon-toed and bow-legged, with one leg longer than the other”, though I see no signs of any of those conditions today. Mama was known for her inventive exaggerations, so I am inclined to believe my sisters’ accounts of my childhood maladies, which are less interesting but a bit more believable.