muttering in public

Today I was sitting in the car with Wolfgang my pup, our windows all the way down to prevent us from melting. I saw a six foot man with a protruding tummy coming down the street. He was wearing a polo shirt tucked thoroughly into faded navy track pants. The trackpants were pulled almost up to his chest, with the cords hanging out. I could see that he was talking to himself, and as he passed my window I caught what he was saying.

“My disability.”

Then there was silence. A few seconds later,

“My disability.”

Silence.

I just sat there feeling stunned and sad. I wished he had been singing to himself, or muttering about the beautiful weather – but he was pondering his and society’s perception of himself. I wanted to go and tell him that he was great just as he was, that he didn’t need to sweat it. I wished he didn’t even know he had a disability, that he could accept himself without a label.

I found it hard to forget him, hard to see him so internally disturbed by this view of himself. Then it was dawned on me that I was just like him. In my head, a hundred times a day I mutter,

“My disability.”

I say it when I wake up and face the day at home, and when I get weak cleaning the bathroom, when someone asks me what I do, and when I send another message saying ‘no’ or ‘less’.

I’m painfully acutely aware that I am abnormal, and that people aren’t into abnormal. I absolutely dread that moment of discovery in conversation: that I am disabled.

I wished most for the man not that he was able bodied {I do wish that too}, but that he could walk down the street unconcerned by difference or disability. I just wanted him to embrace being him without all the fear. I wish that for myself. I see all the ‘can'ts’ and ‘no longers’ and ‘abnormals’ and the thought that my life is less valuable than another’s is like a load of lead. Just imagine if the whole motley bunch of us mostly ailed humans stopped adding the requirement of seeming ‘normal’ and simulating ‘ideal’ to our diverse issues.

I think if I lived within the boundaries which allow me to function somewhat pain free, and let go of all the “Help, I don’t have a career!  Help, I’m a social failure!  Help, people must judge me because I can’t do things!” I’d stand a chance at less misery, more joy, more living. I want to live the life that I lead at peace with the path I am on. Enough with the muttering, more of the appreciating, loving, giving and receiving grace.