I was five and it was a beautiful summer day when my grandmother taught me to walk like a boy.

“Your steps are too short. Boys take long strides,” she said. “Like this.” She demonstrated, exaggerating a swagger across her front lawn that looked like John Wayne with hemorrhoids.

I tried it, stretching my legs long with each step. It felt unnatural, and I was embarrassed as my twin sister, my grandmother and all the cars driving by looked on. It had never occurred to me that boys walked one way and girls walked another. It reminded of the recent time when my father looked at me and my Cabbage Patch Doll with disappointment.

“Boys don’t play with dolls like that,” he said.

But I did.

And apparently I walked like a girl, too.

“Not quite that long,” my grandmother said. My legs tired from reaching so far, but I wanted to get it right. Walk like a boy. Not a girl. Walk like a boy. Not a girl. Walk like a boy. You are a boy. Not a girl.

Twenty-three years later, this lesson remains. I reflexively watch my reflection in storefront windows as I walk down the street or through a Minneapolis skyway. Sometimes my steps are short, and I am instantly five years old again, hurt and embarrassed: Walk like a boy. Not a girl.

Other times I satisfy myself by appearing quite naturally masculine.

And still other times I think, Up yours, Grandma. This is just how I walk… And then I put a little swish in it.

I knew that it had been a good vacation when yesterday I went to tie my tie before work and completely forgot how. I put it around my neck, one end longer than the other and then I froze. I simply could not remember what to do next. A brief moment of panic passed over me. Did I have a stroke that erased that piece of knowledge? If so, what else did I lose? Would I get on the bus and forget when to get off? Would my words come out garbled and confused?

I tried a few combinations, but I couldn’t get the tie right. Then I tried not thinking about it and just letting muscle memory take over. That didn’t work, either. After several years of wearing a tie almost daily, how did I forget? Next I would forget to wipe, and then I would forget to even go to the bathroom before urinating, and then I would be thrown into a nursing home, wetting my pants and drooling onto my shirt.

Finally, I resorted to the Internet to save me from myself. Thankfully, BrooksBrothers.com has tutorials on how to tie a tie. I followed their examples and finally got myself ready for work… and managed to get off the bus at the right stop.

When the rental car lady attempted her upsell on Christmas Eve, I fell for it. “You can upgrade to a four-wheel-drive Jeep for only $90,” she said. I looked outside, where Michigan winter had hit early. The snow was falling hard, and the roads were covered in snow and slush.

“Let’s do it,” I said.

Good thing, too. Thirty miles from my parents’ house, a firetruck blocked the highway, lights flashing, protecting a scene of towtrucks and ambulances that were buzzing around a vehicle upside down in the ditch. They gave no instructions on how to get around the barrier, so I picked the closest road and ended up on unplowed dirt roads overhung with heavy tree branches and flanked by white fields. I’ve never seen so much white. It was beautiful, falling from the sky, covering the road, the fields, the trees, the igloo houses with their smoking chimneys. The ditch threatened to pull me into its cold embrace, but I laughed at it and drove on.

Three feet of snow covered the ground. “I want to go cross country skiing,” I told my parents on Christmas Day. They said it was too deep and would be impossible to ski in that. I said, “Sounds like a challenge,” and took off with my dad’s black lab puppy, Trooper, and my sister’s German Shepherd, Shiloh. At the bottom of the hill that stretches out to the buried corn field, I biffed it and landed face first in the snow. Getting back upright was an epic struggle, with Trooper bouncing on my face and solid land out of reach. Shiloh, who doesn’t like me but was nonetheless happy to trail along, looked off into the distance and pretended I didn’t exist.

Finally, I made it back onto my feet with only a little snow down the crack of my ass, and set off on the 2-mile trek around the perimeter of the field. Trooper heels quite well, especially for a puppy. Unfortunately, this also meant that he walked on the back of my skis the entire way, which only added to the difficulty of plowing through all that snow. He had a look of unfiltered glee, though, so I let him continue. Shiloh continued her snub from 10 feet behind me.

By the time I made it back to my parent’s house, Trooper was still trotting along with an air of excited discovery, Shiloh was dragging ass and maybe a little sorry that she went along, and my legs were sore.

That was my Christmas. Hope yours was merry and bright.