Jeans... say what?

It's about 1:45 in the morning and I'm trying to sleep. My mind is wandering to something I was talking about with friends earlier. More on that in a minute.

A random thought now. One of the simple joys in life? Jeans. People don't realize how amazing it is to just slap on a pair of jeans. They go with everything. Heck, I used to sleep in them sometimes. Some of my college buddies can tell you about a pair of jeans that I referred to as my "Sunday jeans". They can either give off the message, "I don't care," or, if they're nicer (and out of my league), they can say, "I shop at Express and stuff and I know style. You don't. I wear nice jeans and you wear old jeans that don't fit." For a while, I wore shorts or sweatpants like my fellow patients. In the hospital, thats what my therapists taught me how to put on. It was kind of annoying to even get those on. (Try pulling your pants up while you're sitting, without lifting your butt up). My occupational therapist said she'd teach me how to wear "normal clothes" when I was in inpatient, but we never got to it. So, while in outpatient therapy at Shepherd and after about 6-7 months of looking like I was preparing to run through the streets of Philly in my sweatpants like Rocky, I decided one day to just put on a pair of my old jeans. Some of the more "fitted" jeans (not skinny jeans, mind you) were kind of hard to put on. But I was able to put on some jeans. And they felt great. To me, it was a big step in rejoining "normal society". It was a simple pleasure. Please don't ever take it for granted.

I got to thinking about that memory because I was talking to a few friends today about how I wish I could put my contacts in. I told them how it's a real pain to have to lean over the sink to wash my hands, so I just use hand sanitizer. I don't need a sink to put the contacts in my eyes, but I also don't want my eyes to burn if I still have traces of hand sanitizer on my hands. I'm remembering the part of Fight Club where Tyler Durden burns the narrator's hand with lye... and it's not a good mental image that I want to mimic with my eyeballs. So, a goal of mine is to get physically good enough to stand (somehow) in front of the sink and mirror to be able to put my contacts in and not look like a dork with my glasses. It'll feel great when I can do that. Simple pleasures man, simple pleasures.