# Walking. Most of us learn to walk by the time we're a year old. Apparently, I was an "early walker" according to my family. However, as a kid and as a teen, I was always told that I wasn't doing it right. *"Pick up your feet."* *"Why do you lean forward when you walk?"* *"You know you bounce when you walk?"* Three common criticisms I regularly received when I was just minding my own business moving through the world as I saw fit. These always struck me as odd, but never-the-less, Masked Kayla tried to fix the walking "problem." First, I worked on not dragging my feet--at least in places where it was more obvious like the Walmart parking lot where my mom could apparently hear how badly I dragged my feet against the asphalt. Next, I worked on posture. And who has better posture than the great *Angelina Jolie?* I watched as many movies of hers as I possibly could. I began to hold my head high like she did and this actually had the added bonus of increasing my confidence. Last, I tried to figure out how to *not bounce* while I walked. This one didn't really make any sense to me, but apparently, I did it and it wasn't "normal" so I needed to stop. But how do you know if you're bouncing or not? It made no sense. But, with the Angelina Jolie walk, I started receiving fewer comments on my walking, so I assumed that fixed "the bounce" as well. Unfortunately, that wasn't the end of the comments on my walking. At some point during high school, one of my [[special interests]] was high-heels. I amassed a collection of shoes with heels and I wore them almost every day. There were only a few other girls in school that wore heels. One of them was named Jessica. It was no secret that I wasn't a big fan of her. She was the stereotypical mean girl and not many people liked her. One day in beginning journalism, we all had to write opinion pieces and then tell the rest of the class what out opinion topic was and why we chose it. Jessica proceeded to stand up and tell the entire class that her opinion piece was about why *some women* shouldn't wear heels and that the ones that *don't know how to walk in them* should stop wearing them until they learn the proper way to do it because they *looked ridiculous.* She never said my name, but I knew she was talking about me. Who else could she have been talking about? It certainly wasn't any of her friends that wore heels and outside of that group, I was the only one who wore them regularly. So, soon after, I stopped wearing them so much. I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong, so I just gave up. These days, I do not wear heels, not because of Jessica, but because they're extremely uncomfortable. I also occasionally find myself dragging my feet, leaning forward, and I also suspect that I "bounce." Additionally, I find that my left foot tends to land flat on the ground while my right foot tends to land only on the ball of my foot or mostly on the ball of my foot. Do I care? No. I'm walking while neurodivergent and that's how I'll continue to walk from now on.