My legs shake underneath the table, rattling the chair I’m sitting in. Across the table, my date notices and raises an eyebrow at me.
“Marie,” he says, a warning.
I ignore him, scooping up another spoonful of my soup. I hope that he’ll ignore my perpetually-active legs, but my prayers are useless. He reaches out his hand and sets it atop my thigh, trying to stop my legs from moving. I roll my eyes; I have explained this to him so many times already.
“Does it really bother you that much?” I snap, and he looks me dead in the eye.
“I just think it’s a really bad sign when someone can’t sit still.”
I take a long sip of my drink before responding to him with the same confidence he faced me with. “Except it’s painful for me to sit still. I’ve explained this to you.”
His words stutter in response‒-he clearly either doesn’t remembered or doesn’t care. His reaction immediately makes me decide to not go out with him again. If shaking bothers him that much, he will have to find a girl that doesn’t have Restless Legs Syndrome.
I wasn’t sad to let him go, but his reaction is something I’m getting a little tired of. My whole life, I’ve been told that I need to sit still, that it’s unprofessional to always be moving your legs, that it’s a sign of deep anxieties and should be stilled. I struggled through school for thirteen years, eight hours a day, not knowing how other kids could handle sitting in a desk. Being still for more than a half-hour–sometimes even less‒-leaves a widespread aching pain in my legs that can only be relieved by moving. I didn’t know until just a few years ago that this isn’t something that everyone feels.
RLS has affected me in many subtle ways. It’s hard for me to fall asleep, due to the pain in my legs. I haven’t gone to a movie theater in several years because the length of a film is too long for me to sit through. Travel becomes dreaded because it means long periods of lots of pain.
I’ve learned to deal with the pains through exercise, stretching, and even soaking in a warm bath. But it just surprises me that in a society with 10% of people having restless legs, we still preach sitting still as a good quality. How does that make you any more professional?
It scares me that this is likely only going to get worse with age, but I’ll find ways to manage as I go. I’ll petition schools to purchase standing desks, I’ll get on the treadmill more often, and I’ll shake my legs under the table during dinner. Just don’t try and stop me.