Last night I spent 20 minutes in my apartment putting things away. Here’s what I accomplished: one pair of pyjamas, folded and put away in drawer; one pair of running shoes (in my case, rolling shoes), pulled out of one cubbyhole thingy hanging in my closet for shoe storage, and put into another. (Technically I didn’t actually reach my goal because I dropped one of the shoes and couldn’t reach it. I drop things so much that I think whenever I do manage to pick something up, I should just throw it to the floor because that’s where it’s going to end up.) That’s right, two simple tasks that would’ve taken an able-bodied person 30 seconds, took me 20 minutes. I will now attempt to tell you why it took that long.
Blame it on my hands. I don’t have a lot of sensitivity left in my palms or fingertips. It feels like I’m wearing mittens all the time. My hands aren’t as strong or coordinated as they used to be. Sometimes it feels as though they’ve forgotten they were holding on to something. Sometimes it’s no problem. When things are really bad, I’m unable to open my hand up and extend my fingers wide enough to hold on to something. The reverse is also true: I can’t open my hands up wide enough to let go of something. My fingers often end up tightly clenched and curled up into the palms of my hands. This happens a lot when I’m cold or in a stressful situation. I sleep at night with a splint on my left hand to keep my fingers flat and extended. I’m supposed to wear one on my right hand as well, but I need it to use the TV remote. That’s more important.
This is what it affects: wringing out a wet face cloth, applying mousse in my hair, holding my hair dryer, feeding myself, using the TV remote, putting clothes on and off hangers, folding anything, wrapping gifts, signing my name (printing or writing anything, for that matter), all aspects of dressing, blowing my nose, etc. I could go on.
By now I bet you’re wondering why I would even attempt to put that pair of pyjamas away, or move those shoes into a bigger cubbyhole, by myself. I asked myself the same question. The simple answer is I wanted it done then. Normally, it’s the kind of little detail that I would wait and ask one of the caregivers to do for me. Except that with COVID 19, their already long lists of things to do for me effectively doubled, because I couldn’t bring in the weekly help from outside. I don’t feel good about ordering them around like a little general. I do too much of that already. In my defence, I’ve gotten a lot smarter about saving my energy for fun things that only I can do.
Here’s the thing: when I see things out of place because they haven’t been hung up, or I dropped it and couldn’t pick it up myself, or there’s a mess on my desk that needs to be tidied, all that clutter becomes visual noise. Soon I can’t think straight because of all the yelling in my head.
That’s when I start doing things by myself. Mostly because I’m stubborn.
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