(Author’s Note: I wrote this in my journal a few weeks ago)
A few days ago, I cut myself while chopping vegetables. As I was shifting my knife over to cut again, I just nicked my finger, and though I quickly got a bandaid on and kept cooking, I was still angry at myself for letting it happen. I pride myself on good, safe, efficient knife work, and every time I have cut myself, I know exactly what I did wrong to let it happen.
Fortunately, the cut was on the backside of my finger just below my nail, so it hasn’t really affected my ability to do anything. Sometimes, the smallest injuries can cause tremendous irritation, like having the blister on the ball of your foot or getting a paper cut on a butt wiping finger. Suddenly, an otherwise irrelevant part of your body is the most sensitive and noticed spot. It makes me appreciate those strange, forgotten parts.
The appreciation goes beyond simple awareness of the body part and into appreciation of the activity itself. My ongoing forearm problems have made me realize how I have centered everything I do upon the computer. Obviously I work on my computer, and I play games on my computer. I also write on my computer because of my blog. I do a lot of reading online. I watch TV almost exclusively through internet streaming. Oddly, those last few items shouldn’t even require the computer, but they have ended up converging on this device.
My latest malady of tremendous annoyance but not deserving of real sympathy is a canker sore on the underside of my tongue. Having never had a canker sore as far as I can remember, I’m going to pretend that this one was particularly bad. When my tongue is in a neutral position, it is hardly noticeable, but it is located such that both speaking and chewing are quite painful.
Maybe those who interact with me regularly won’t be surprised, but I have found it really hard to resist talking. When people ask me what I enjoy doing or what my hobbies are, I usually have to think about it. I might mention playing video games or cooking, but those are particular activities that I do at discrete times and not as often as I would like. I do, however, talk a lot, and I guess I like cooking because I enjoy eating so much. I never realized how important talking and eating are to me except when it was an effortful process to make it happen.
I have figured out workarounds. I have tried to talk without moving my tongue, which makes my fast speech even more difficult to understand. I compensate by gesturing a lot, though that gets silly quickly. I also have tried to avoid solid food, but that let to me to finding calories in drinking orange juice, which doesn’t interact well with canker sores. I guess I’ll just shut up and eat my food. And I’ll try to enjoy it, too.