A statue's view of me: I squirm like a 7-year-old boy

So I'm kind of twitchy. Not in the little-kid-who-can't-sit-still way, but . . . well, maybe I am twitchy in that way.

But I didn't fully realize it until recently.

First what I already knew: I itch a lot. I squirm a lot. It's hard for me to sit still for a long time. If I ever have to get an MRI, I will go crazy because suddenly I will begin to get itchy everywhere I can't move.

That's not too unusual, I suspect.

I suspect.

But sometimes it's different. For instance, a few years ago Mrs. Brad and I were in Hawaii and took part in one of those do-three-things outings, where we hiked through a forest, rode mountain bikes and went snorkeling in the ocean (not simultaneously). The bike ride was the part where it became obvious.

We rode down a long, winding hill – obviously this wasn't an outing to see how tough  you were, but one to give you all the fun of without the work of pedaling up hills. Anyway, I told Mrs. Brad I'd follow her down the hill and did, for about five or 10 minutes. Just into the ride, I realized I was scratching and adjusting my seat and moving around.

Mrs. Brad looked like a statue. She didn't move.

I kept moving, adjusting myself. My arm itched. My leg itched. My face itched. I needed to move in the seat. I wanted to stand up.

I told her about it and we laughed. Ha ha ha. Yeah, I'm twitchy. I squirm.

Fast-forward to a couple of weeks ago. We were at a stoplight in our Prius, which goes silent in such circumstances. Mrs. Brad sat silently. She could hear me moving around, shifting, scratching. Looking out the side window, moving again.

She never moved.

We laughed about it. Ha ha ha. I'm a twitcher, she's a statue.

Then we had lunch with a friend from work. The story came up and we laughed. Then she spoke.

"You should see Brad during our meetings," she said. "He constantly moves around and taps his pen on the table. He's always moving."

What?

Apparently this is something about me that's known by people beyond Mrs. Brad. Apparently I'm the wiggly 7-year-old who can't sit still (in fact, we recently went to a Giants game with my nephew, his wife and their charming 7-year-old son. Mrs. Brad asked me what it was like to sit next to myself).

Apparently, the fact that I get up from my desk and walk around frequently is seen as restlessness, not being social.

This is a thing. (And, in fact, I've adjusted my seat several times while writing this and looked at the window while scratching my face.)

It's a little late in life, but I'm willing to accept it. While I would like to think of myself as normal and maybe consider my frequent movement as "having energy," others see it as me being a restless twitcher.

Mrs. Brad has known it for a long time, but I guess co-workers and friends do, too.

I'll do something about it after I'm done squirming, then walking around.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.