How Are You Feeling Today?

Its not a cane, its a walking stick!

Have you ever seen the movie Wit?  Its a wonderful, thought provoking film starring Emma Thompson.  Her character is a woman with stage 4 cancer undergoing a brutal, experimental treatment.  Anyway, one of her monologues concerns how everyone invariably greets her with the throwaway line 'How are you feeling today?"  (Really? Stage 4 cancer??) She replies "Fine". 

One of my Mom's pet peeves was people who asked her the same thing.  She was too honest not to tell them exactly how she was feeling and then was annoyed when the questioner acted uncomfortable and flustered not knowing how to respond to her litany of pains.  (Why do they ask me, if they really don't want to know?) 

I find myself encountering similar queries these days.  Since I blew out my knee in November, a cane has become my most obvious accessory.  That one little item has had an amazing impact on my life.  I have to admit, it has been pretty alarming to have gone, overnight,  from a 'fairly vital 60ish lady with iffy knees' to a 'little old lady hobbling around on a cane'.  I swear that cane has aged me 20 years in other's perceptions of me!  And, well meaning folks tend to greet me with "How are you feeling today?" accompanied with sympathetic pats and smiles.  Well, I'm not quite that far over the hill! I flash a big smile and say "I'm great!  My knees aren't so happy right now, but the rest of me is just fine".  And, it is true.  Just because I may walk a little slower and have to sit down a little more frequently-- my mind, my sense of humor and whatever makes me.. ME,  are all very much intact, thank you very much.  Its all a matter of perspective.  By the way.. I have decided I will no longer refer to this handy dandy object as a cane.. it is, in fact, a walking stick.  Now, doesn't that sound more elegant?

So.. how are YOU feeling today?