You would think, by now, that I would know whats coming and how to deal with it when it happens. But it doesn’t matter how many reminders I set myself, how many alerts that go off counting down the week before I know it’ll happen, somehow I still don’t expect it.

It happens, to everyone on a different day and yet always at the same time. Exactly six months after your birthday, slap bang in the middle of your birth year. It helps, I guess, not to plan any important things on those days, like getting married. I couldn’t imagine anything worse than realising I’d planned my own wedding on that day.

But, I like to think that I’ve seen it all. I’ve gone through losing my sight, my hearing, taste and smell at different points and I’ve come to accept that. I know how to deal with those, and it’s just for a day right? How bad can it be?

I thought I’d seen it all, but turns out … I was wrong.

My alarm blared, loudly as I woke groggily to the sound of it blaring out. My first thoughts of dawning comprehension being that I had both hearing and sight, a slight breath of relief leaves my lips - I’d always found those two the worst to deal with. I can live without tasting and without smelling things for a day. It’s just a day … that’s all I’d have to deal with, I’d just have to avoid my favourite places to eat, not use any of my expensive perfume neither of which were exactly a hardship.

Reaching out, I went to switch the alarm off, hearing the soft ‘thud, thud, thud’ of my fingers as they hit the surface of my phone and yet … nothing’s registering. I can’t feel anything, as the soft ‘thudding’ continues and only then does it register.

I sit bolt up right in bed, swearing under my breath as I reach out again to tap at my phone, this time seeing where I’m aiming to switch the damn thing off. Silence descends, and as I see my fingers connect with the phone, I feel … nothing.

It’s only then that it dawns on me, I feel nothing. I can’t feel the soft fabric of my pyjama’s or my sheets. I can’t feel the sensation of my hair dangling down over my shoulders, I can’t feel the sensation in my throat as I swallow, I can’t feel … anything. I can see the indentation of my body in the sheets, in the mattress. I can even see my palms pressing down into the softness of it, leaving the puffed up edges of the sheets around my fingers.

A soft growl of frustration leaves my lips at that, as I attempt to stand up. My feet planted firmly on the floor and yet … I feel nothing. My brain yelling at me, screaming at me to stop and not do what I so desperately want to do, something that has for so many years come so naturally to me. My legs wobble, I see them shaking as my brain starts to instinctively react to the situation. I lurch forwards, reaching for my dressing table to latch onto, the palms of my hands slapping down onto it as I fall to the floor.

It’s a strange sensation, as I find myself on the floor. Almost like I’m floating, I’m there and yet I feel nothing. I can’t feel the hardness of the floor beneath me, I can’t feel the uncomfortable sensation of the crumpled heap that I’ve become, a soft groan escapes my lips as I realise, I don’t know it all.

I don’t know all that there is to come when it comes to this day, once a year, where I lose one of my senses. I don’t know everything there is to know about it. I thought I’d seen the worst of it, looking at only the superficial.

But then, I realise, that’s me - I’ve only ever looked at the superficial, I’ve never looked past it. This is a lesson, I’ve come to realise, a lesson against my own cocky arrogance at thinking I know everything.

Today, I have learned that I know nothing.