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.
