Of human frailties

Recently I've been noticing how dependent we are on our bodies. I'm sure it'll be much more apparent when I'm 50...or 75...or 90.... The other day after work, I thought to myself, "My feet hurt!" This is not uncommon for me after a long day of standing. However, it was uncommon at that moment, because I realized I thought, "My FEET hurt," NOT, "My FOOT hurts," which is how it's been since August. Yay!

I also recently went to the eye doctor for my annual check up. (And got new glasses!) After the beginning glaucoma check and other miscellaneous tests with the nurse, I was led to my exam room and sat down. Then the nurse said, "Bye, have a good afternoon" and I repeated more or less the same thing back to her. The funny thing was, at that moment, I suddenly felt like a complete idiot, because I was cheerily smiling at her, as one politely does when speaking those rather meaningless pleasantries. That's normal for me. I like to be cheery and friendly, at least when I've got the energy. But at this time, I had my contacts out, and the nurse was all the way across the room, so I couldn't see her face at all. I presumed she was cheerily smiling back at me, but it was at that moment I realized how deeply we rely on these little, nonverbal social clues. Sure, I assumed she was smiling at me, and had I seen it, I would have smiled back without thinking. But being blind, as far as I knew, she was sticking out her tongue at me, so it was a little disconcerting to happily smile "back" at who-knows-what.

Just another thing we healthy people take for granted most of the time....