When you go about rediscovering the world in middle age, you don’t feel like an adult — confident about what you know and comfortable with the things you don’t know. Suddenly, you know nothing.

I have joked to my husband that, for the last two weeks, I’ve felt a bit like Milton Wadams from Office Space, shuffling and mumbling as I reprocess each sensation and landscape — gravel under the feet, the plaintive sound of an orange cat needing to be petted just so, dishes arriving at the dentist.

Now, I’m actually learning to embrace the shuffling and robotic processing of sensory input. Rather than being a malcontented, midlife crisis, I’m trying to experience the world as if I were a child again.

My only source of malcontent has been how difficult painting has become difficult this week. The sensors still seem disconnected from output. Partly out of desperation (knowing that non-writing/drawing artist is a monster courting disaster) my post-labyrinthectomy journey of discovery seems to be bringing me back to my blog – my original writing and drawing diary.

Now, as I am watching every little detail around me, I mentally record the mundane and magical moments around our yard like a robot, searching, not for artificial intelligence, but authentic interaction with the world. This voyage of discovery will undoubtedly reroute my journey of creation. 

When I was first diagnosed with Ménière’s disease three years ago, I was told that it was a disability that automatically disqualified you from multiple professions. Two years ago, I was told to stop using stairs taking public transportation by myself because likely and actual unpredictable “drop attacks.” I was told the disease would end when I lost my hearing in the affected air. 

Last week, when I give up the hearing to prevent any more false, it would’ve been easy to see the change as a loss, as acquiring more disability. 

Instead, the opposite is happening. It may take some time to be able to drive again, and the shuffling will probably persist for a while. That’s OK because the shuffling is part of rediscovery, and that will lead to a whole new chapter of creativity.