Wednesday November 8, 2006

Had an interesting “wow” moment this weekend.

For my entire adult life I have never been able to perform some basic household functions such as changing lots of clocks that are too high on the wall, cleaning my bathroom mirror or fixing my shower curtain when the hooks come off the rod. These are all tasks I’ve always had to wait for my parents or other relatives to visit for them to be accomplished.

That changed, at least in part, this weekend. I’ve been noticing that I can stand up a lot straighter than I ever remember being able to stand. It’s probably the same I was able to do at this weight but I was still in college at this size so I’m just now noticing the things I’m able to do.

It started in the shower. I noticed recently that I was able to reach to get the shower head up and down on my own. Then the other day I was putting the shower head up and noticed that some of the hangers for the shower curtain were mangled. I was able to reach up while standing the shower and fix them myself! It was hard but I did it.

Later I was at my computer and started to be annoyed again the clock above my computer desk. It was the only one this time that I hadn’t been able to get down to change and back up again. I thought well, at least I bet I can reach to knock it off and I can have someone put it back up later. Well, I got it down and it was so easy I tried to put it back up again. VOILA! I have officially changed all the clocks in my home.

I then started thinking… if I can do this, why can’t I clean my own mirror? There is no way I can reach the mirror but I started asking around for advice on how to do it. I’m going to get one of those squeegie things like what you see at a gas station for car windows and see if that works.

I know this may seem like an odd “wow” moment but it means a lot to me. It’s just one more way I’m getting my life back and in some ways doing more than I was ever able to do before.