For a lot of years, I was concerned what other people thought of me. It lasted way too long. When I turned 50 (ok no comments!), I suddenly didn’t care what others thought of me. I don’t know how that happened, but it is as if a sudden revelation happened. Overnight it seemed like I went from caring what other people thought of me to not caring what they thought. Along the way, I learned that what other people think of me is none of my business.
That didn’t stop me though from caring what other people thought of me, no matter the circumstances. It was a tough road to overcome.
So when I turned 50, I was not prepared for what happened. It’s weird, because the day before was like any other day in my life. I was concerned what people thought of me.
The morning I woke up on my 50th birthday, things suddenly changed. I don’t know how it happened or what. It just seemed to happen overnight.
All of a sudden, I didn’t care what others thought of me. I can’t explain it. All I know is that I woke on my birthday and didn’t care what others thought of me.
It was like that for a lot of years, until recently.
I have issues with my hands. I have Dupuytren’s Contracture. It’s also known as “The Viking’s Disease.” I guess that means somewhere genealogically I have some Viking blood somewhere, though I don’t know where,
For a lot of years, my hands didn’t bother me. Then I began to notice “cords” forming in the palm of my hands. It didn’t really bother me at first as there was no pain in my hands. I had seen a hand specialist who told me to come back and see him if I couldn’t lay my palm flat.
Periodically, I would try this test. I could lay my hand flat for quite some time, until one day I noticed the middle finger on my right hand not being completely straight. Don’t worry though, I can still give the one finger salute even though it’s slightly bent!
I could no longer flatten my palm on a flat surface. the tip of my finger is slightly bent, but it does not bother me. The cords on the palm of my hands concerns me more. They look like tiny rope like raised features on my palm on both hands. My left hand currently isn’t an issue though.
I do work with my hands as a living. And recently I decided to get some gel packed bike gloves to protect my hands and hopefully try to prevent the cords from growing worse.
At work I have to wear these thin cut-proof gloves. I wear a clean room cotton glove underneath to absorb the sweat from my hands. I started to wear them underneath the bike gloves too.
When I began to wear them recently, I suddenly became concerned about what other people thought. I was not prepared for that realization. I thought I was done with worrying what others thought of me. I was wrong and I certainly was not expecting of it.
What would people think if I wore them in the grocery store? What about work? It went on and on. Ad nauseum.
What helped me to begin to overcome this challenge was when I took some cans to be redeemed. I was in the local grocery store redeeming cans with my cans, feeling self-conscious about wearing bike gloves, when this older lady was wearing gloves also to redeem her cans too.
The bike gloves do help to protect my hands, mainly the palms. I don’t want the cords getting worse, nor do I want to cause further pain. I will say though no one in public or at work has asked me about it. The more I wear them it seems the more I get more comfortable with them, though I don’t wear them all the time.
Hopefully, this is the last of “what will other people think” nonsense.