Disabled Chronicles, No.17:
I don’t get to take a break.
I don’t get to decide that my disabilities are too much for me to handle and bounce.
I don’t get to opt out.
I don’t get a respite, a vacation or a life change when dealing with uncooperative veins, high risk treatments and when wheelchairs/medical equipment or aides and helpers get too much for me to want to manage anymore.
I don’t get an out.
I get to have a meltdown. I get to have long cries at night till my pillow is soaked and my face is swollen. I get to have depression and therapy.
When it gets too much for me to be disabled, I get to have more of the same the next day and even more the day after that. I get folks telling me what they think I should do, when they wouldn’t – couldn’t do it themselves.
There is no life coach or guru I can go to to take the disabled away. I get to sit with it, while it’s under my skin, laying it’s work as I try to undo it’s machinations…
while managing mySelf, coordinating my care, keeping my home the ways I want it, keeping up with my appointments…
and STILL have the unmitigated AUDACITY to want more, to reach for more, to dream and create more for Me. To try and carve out a life that feels like it was worth living, to find some happiness, to be an active participant in love, to Be…
To Be, when all the literature says I shouldn’t even exist, much less thrive or excel.
Mm.
I don’t get to walk away.
I don’t get to take a break.
I don’t get to opt out.