Photo by Eugene Zhyvchik on Unsplash
It’s not that I am a Scrooge or an antisocial curmudgeon that wants everybody never to party again. Or that there should never be office parties. Well, maybe as an introvert, I am a bit anti-social but I think that comes along with my personality.
When I was working in an office setting, I kept my health issues to myself. The reasons for that will be shared in another post. However, doing so caused me to be wary about many known factors I have with Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) which can be so embarrassing that I prefer to avoid any situations or events which could cause them to be displayed.
What factors? These:
The first one is my inability to ALWAYS control what my feet will do. As you might know too, I can be walking when all of a sudden I trip over nothing. Yes, nothing. There is nothing on the ground. As far as I can tell the ground is level. However, I have tripped on nothing repeatedly. It’s usually pretty funny to the observer when I am doing my best effort to recover without falling down on the ground. I can just see myself with a full plate of food, or two, finding a place without looking for it to trip and throw my food across the room. It would only be funny if the food fell on my least favorite co-worker or maybe the annoying boss, but I didn’t say that.
The second one is my inability to ALWAYS control my hands. While most of the time, I don’t have much trouble with them, there are moments when I drop things. These moments seem to be increasing as time goes forward. I don’t like being embarrassed by doing some perceived as stupid, no one does. So trying to balance a plate of food while selecting what I want to eat, trying not to drop the utensil used to get the food to my plate, and walking forward without stumbling is not on my list for a fun activity.
The third one is the inability to balance my plate of food, put food on it, and talk to someone else while doing it all. Crazy sounding isn’t it? I have never understood those people at potluck luncheons or social events who can talk to everyone about everything while simultaneously placing food on a plate without dropping one little bit. I would have food everywhere with maybe a little on my plate.
My guess is the deterioration of the nervous system from CMT is the culprit behind my dislike of these social events. It is something I can’t help nor is there much I can do about it. At work, I would do whatever I could to avoid the event including taking the day off or offering to run the office while the rest enjoyed their time. That was always my favorite thing to do. However, I have yet to find a “fix” to this problem. Avoiding them isn’t always the best answer because I think it offends people but that’s really the best I can do.
I will consider attending a social event with pot luck luncheon, or whatever they are called these days, with my wife. She is good about helping me with carrying my plate and drink. She seems to have learned to manage the fine line of helping but not embarrassing me. Though, to be honest, I’m grateful for her help. She isn’t doing anything as embarrassing as I would be by tripping and throwing food all over the place. My luck, it’d be on someone I didn’t like to start with.