I spent a couple of days last week repurposing some sheets.  My-daughter-in-law had given me a queen set when they’d upgraded to a king. It’s soft bamboo fabric, but the bottom sheet wouldn’t stretch enough to go over my mattress. So I lopped off the elastic and turned it into three pillowcases. I also had cut up a sheet of silky, white cotton and I turned that into two more pillowcases.

I like the idea of repurposing. It’s what I did when my fingers were making me suffer so. When my thumbs, index fingers,and middle fingers were taking turns developing fissures, and were consistently in different stages of breakdown and healing, I called on my ring fingers and pinkies to pick up the slack.

I repurposed them. And they, like troopers, jumped to the task. They became my go-to fingers, to work my cell phone, my tablet, even my keyboard. They went above and beyond the call of duty, and the same fate thankfully did not befall them. Though I lived in constant worry that it would.

I was advised by my doctors not to wrap my fingertips with adhesive bandages, which I had been doing every single night in order to keep the prescribed ointment from rubbing off on the sheets while I slept. Too much stress on your skin, they said. Use white cotton gloves, I was told, so I ordered some.

But alas, once I put them on, I could not use my gadgets. Their screen needed to feel my warm, live fingers, apparently, and I cannot go to sleep without reading myself to sleep. So I said, I don’t need all my fingers covered and chopped off the parts of the gloves I didn’t need. I digitally altered them. Problem solved.

They look funny, but it works. And it’s easier to work my gadgets with my own digits than to use a stylus pen. Don’t have to worry about where I last left them. And it looks like I am making my way out of the woods. My fingers are on the mend. (Knock on same woods.)

Just one of the many twists and turns life makes you navigate. But with purpose we go forward, and when that purpose is thwarted, re-purpose.