Words: More or Less

 Sometimes I come across a word, in a book, a crossword puzzzle, or heard on television, a perfectly familiar word, and I wonder-----have I ever used that word:  Spoken it?  Written it?  Time was when  I used a lot more words than I do now, all those written term papers, all those years in the classroom, those rambling discussions with friends, and others, aimed at discovering who we were.  Arguments, debates, confessions, explanations.  Even today, if words had mass, took up physical space, I could easily speak enough words to fill a room, or even the entire house,  just by talking.  But circumstance inevitably applies its own restrictions, and, though it would seem  incomprehensible to the self I used to be, some days now I speak hardly a word.  ****So many words, so little opportunity.