The first step

I started driving when I was 14. Yes, I know it wasn't legal. But we had just moved onto a farm we named, not so affectionately, Green Acres, and since my kid sister was being taught how to drive the tractor (so I could do the heavy lifting) I got to learn how to drive the car.

Since that time, I have owned or had access to a car with the exception of a one-year period when my daughter was an infant and don't get me started on that -- it was a brutal year.

The alarm would go off and I'd hold my eyes closed, miserable that another dismal day of transportation logistics had begun. No bus ran between our apartment and her daycare and we were without stroller so I carried her, her diaper bag and my over-loaded purse every day (yes, it was even uphill). Then I'd try to extricate myself from her chatty babysitter in time to either catch a co-worker before she left for work or the bus. I was late nearly every morning. Late, oddly enough, was frowned upon.

Pediatrician appointments, grocery shopping, every single excursion was a nightmare.

It was a year that scars me still.

I have owned a car through poverty, post-secondary education, two divorces, and numerous lifetimes.

Until last month.

On August 8, 2009, I became car-less.

Though a long and convoluted break-up of my most current relationship, I ended up without the family vehicle.

I'm trying not to be bitter.

Instead, I am going to learn how to live without said mode of conveyance. I am downtown after all. How hard can it be? I can walk almost everywhere. And there is a bus system.

And so I walk. My calves are already starting to tighten and I've dropped 10 pounds. If only I didn't have another 100 to lose that 10 would be pretty impressive, wouldn't it?

So, we begin my story of my life on two legs.

Let's see how far we go.

Colleen