Little things

So I'm sipping a chocolate malt from the local county fair and pondering the little adjustments I've had to make to my daily life in the past half year. The big adjustments are something different and for whatever reasons I don't think about them too much -- ambivalence as self-defense, perhaps. One big thing that has come about gradually over several years, but is quite apparent lately because there are hired nurses assisting in the task, is getting help with my daily hygiene.

The little things about this daily assistance are specifics of how I wash my body, what time of day I first brush my teeth (before tea or after), exactly how I part my hair or wash my face, what clothes I choose to wear, what order I put them on in, and -- one that continually surprises me -- precisely how I want to wear my underwear. I have preferences for all these little things, it turns out, and I suppose everyone does but doesn't need to contemplate them much when they do them quickly by themselves. Bring another person into the situation and it becomes a negotiation or subtle power issue or small expression of individuality that is challenged in some small way.

About my specific preferences, I'll just note that I insist on having the last word on my underpants. I choose how high they sit on my hips, and how, in relationship to my buttcrack, they will absolutely not behave like a thong -- a determination that I believe only the wearer is qualified to pass judgment on. I do the last adjustments, and my nurses have varying reactions to this. It's one of the few situations where I'm absolutely predictable in how I take control and won't let them help.

It's a minor daily event, so much so that I've considered writing a brief memo to my nurses entitled "The Mysteries of my Panties and Their Appropriate Placement" so they won't feel they're inadequate in that department of my care. Or they'll at least learn they're all in the same boat and not doing anything wrong themselves. Then, I decide I won't write the memo because it should be self-evident. My ass, my choice, after all.

But it's not as simple of a relationship as that, since delegating out any sort of task means giving up some degree of autonomy about exactly how it is done. Right? The big things that have changed for me bring about dozens of these little decisions each day -- capitulation versus keeping control.

It's not all drama and loss. It's entertaining to see how someone else applies deoderant to my pits. And I've found that waiting to see which combination of my clothes I'll be dressed in each day is simply a different kind of fun from choosing them myself. I still choose them whenever I wish but mostly prefer the surprises for now.

The fact that I can finetune the position of my underpants where some quadriplegics can't is not lost on me, though some of those people can't feel how they're positioned anyway. But how much are these little expressions of control or preference part of an individual's being? How important are they to the self? The many little things I let others do for me -- many happily relinquished, by the way -- don't consist of who I am. But at minimum they're probably an expression of self culturally. Not a lifestyle choice exactly, but part of a lifestyle and the culture of disability.

I don't have the answers to how these little changes impact the self. And I know some people will say I'm thinking way too hard about this, but what else is there to do when having these tasks performed for my body by somebody else?