Kitchenophobia
I am scared of my kitchen.

What it boils down to (sorry!) is that my clumsy movements and lurching around leave me more vulnerable to burns, cuts, or other kitchen injuries than I was when I was just an average klutz. Last week a minor incident—one that could have been much, much worse—stripped a little bit more of my self-confidence and independent spirit away, and my world shrunk yet again.

I guess it was only a matter of time. Despite how tiring it is to move around from fridge to stove to counter to pantry to oven, I have managed to compensate by taking frequent breaks or doing some tasks sitting down. And while it's hard to lift, carry, open containers, pour and stir, it's still not impossible. Not quite yet.

So I have continued to do some cooking and baking because it makes me feel at least a tiny bit useful, it's something the kids and I can do together, and I enjoy it. Plus, silly as it may sound, I feel a great sense of accomplishment and pride at the finished product (a pride that is usually way out of proportion with the meatloaf or lasagna or cookies I have actually produced!) because of what I went through to make it.

But ever since an attempt at toffee cookies left me with a glob of boiling (248ºF to be exact) caramel mixture on my thumb—with no way to quickly get to the sink to run it under cold water or even to quickly get it off—I can't seem to shake my fear. And the painful blister on the pad of my thumb won't let me forget.

Luckily, it was a small glob and not the whole pan. But the insistent voice in my head keeps reminding me, it could have been. It could have been the whole pan. It could have been a trip to the emergency room and a hospital stay. It could have been very serious.

And as much as I don't want to deal in could-have-beens, anticipating danger is really the only evasive maneuver I have at my disposal. I can't run. I can't leap out of the way. I can't catch myself if I slip or trip. I either head off danger, or I get out the first-aid kit.

So now what? I am scared of my kitchen. The question is, am I even more afraid of losing another piece of me?

A New Year, A New Approach
I think it’s time to try something different.

Once again, I’m sorry for my long absence, and I’m overwhelmed with guilt and embarrassment. I just can’t seem to handle everything life throws at me from September through December. There are so many topics and experiences I want to write about, but all I seem to produce are random phrases and ideas, scribbled down on a notepad on my nightstand as I collapse into bed, that aren’t ready to publish. And I can’t seem to find the time or energy to develop them into more fully-formed essays.

As my body weakens, even the simplest tasks are eating up more and more of my most precious commodity: time. But giving up on those tasks—giving up on what still remains a semblance of a “normal” life—is not an option. Someday no amount of stubbornness and determination will be enough to force my arms and legs and back muscles to lumber and lurch around the house. Someday my mind will be the only thing that works. Until then, I’m not willing to concede an inch.
 
Throw in a hospitalization and a prolonged battle with H1N1 this fall (more on that later), and this year was harder than ever. I just couldn’t get to everything I wanted to do, and once again, I abandoned writing.

So, if I’m going to continue to have a website, it’s time for me to try something different. Instead of jotting down random notes, I’m going to try blogging those brief notes. Instead of worrying about whether I’ve crafted a fully-formed essay, I’m going to try being satisfied with more frequent, less developed entries.

I’m not entirely sure how this experiment will play out—old habits die hard—but it’s gotta be an improvement over the nothing I’ve been doing, right?