Resigned Irritation

You see that fly up there?   The one buzzing around that young buck’s fuzzy horns?

That is my air conditioner.

At the beginning of the summer, the drone of this piece of machinery in my house is a subtle irritant.  It brushes, prickly and uncomfortable, over the backs of my upper arms and shoulders.  I fight to block it out, to ignore it’s touch upon my skin and go about my day.

As a child, I didn’t realize that not everyone could feel certain sounds.  Feel them like a physical touch on the flesh or a flavor on the tongue.   When I tried to express my discomfort or describe certain sounds, people looked at me like I’d lost my mind and my parents, concerned there was something wrong with me, took me to many doctors and I went through many tests.

I’m a synesthete, though.  And it simply means that the wires connected to certain senses are a bit “crossed”.   Sometimes, I wish that wasn’t the case.

Especially with the air conditioner.

Because by the end of the summer, the need for the air conditioner is still as strong as ever, but the sound of it has become more than just a subtle irritant pushed away to the back of my mind in an effort to ignore it.   It’s a roaring inferno of needle pricks along the backs of my shoulders and upper arms.  Painful and raw and constant.

My “slow crawl through hell” is almost over for the year, but I wish it was already gone.