I Am Dumb

No. Not like that. Well, maybe. Depends on who you ask. But that's besides the point.

Twelve days ago, I had surgery on my vocal cords. It's part of the transition, so it's not like I had cysts or anything bad. Physical recovery wasn't even that rough compared to my other transition surgery. However, a unique side effect of having this procedure is that I have been on complete vocal rest since.

Not just talking, nothing at all. Not a cough, laugh, sigh, grunt, etc.

I typically talk more than average. I use it a ton in my profession, with my friends, with strangers, etc. I've tried not talking for 24 hours before. Even then, I wasn't able to do it perfectly; I'd always let something accidentally slip. Now, I don't have the option (plus it really hurts).

I'd say after being able to tell my wife I love her, the thing I miss most is laughter.

Pictured: Being dumb and not dumb simultaneously!

Being mute is a unique flavor of disability. It is not a lack of being able to sense your environment like those who are blind or deaf; it's in the other direction, putting a limit on how you can express yourself to others. You can see and hear the world just fine; you just can't interact with it in the same way.

You can navigate society and stay out of the way perfectly; but once you want to do something, it becomes a problem. Because it is an invisible condition, when you approach someone, they expect you to say hi or address them in some way. Even with the aid of having a phone with a notes app on it or index cards, it is surprisingly difficult to interact with the world. Society is built with the assumption you can talk (honestly, it's this way for all disabilities, which is why accessibility is important).

As such, the experience has been incredibly isolating. I've only left the apartment a few times, with each one being a challenge. Turns out if you approach someone with an open phone, they assume you are trying to sell something and ignore you. If you accidentally bump into someone, you can't say sorry and just have to keep walking.

Pictured: If you want to tell someone something and can't, did you really have that thought?

Muteness is odd and not discussed much. In fact, in looking around for this post, I couldn't find a reliable source that had any kind of statistics about it (I saw somewhere 1 in 1000, but it was not in a place I'd feel comfortable citing to). It is also commonly a temporary disability (like for me I hope), so I suppose it would be hard to count.

Pour one out for the mute homies sometime.