It occurred to me that the fact that I have a lot of trouble spelling aloud would be a suitably interesting fact for the list of things about me. Then it occurred to me that no, it wouldn’t, because it isn’t a fact about me, it’s a matter of my disability, and it only came in a few years ago, anyway.
Hmm. Well. There’s a troubling thought.
It isn’t really time that matters here: lots of things on that list are recent or temporary facts. It’s a matter of my being bothered by taking on a matter of my disability as being something to do with me. Putting it on that list would have meant accepting my disability as a part of who I am rather than surrounded by a bubble in my existence, writing it in as something not quite so temporary.
I have a complicated relationship with my disability – ha, there, again, positioning it as something separate from myself. It makes life hard, but a lot of the hardship is about other people and society making it so, and I like this community, and it affects a lot of my daily experience, and I like it, and there’s a part of me that thinks it’s temporary and that’s a good thing.
I go from pride to wanting it away from me. I’m not sure where disability as a feature of my life will go from here.
These days I tend to regard my condition as a problematic relative. Sometimes I deeply resent them, sometimes I am proud, if not of them, of my relationship to them. And I think for those of us who have acquired impairments, it will usually stay that way; it is both part of you and apart from you, like family.
I like how much this post reflects that life is messy. I don’t (yet/to my knowledge) have a disability, but I feel similarly about some of my traits, and it’s good to be reminded that we all have mixed feelings about this stuff…thanks!
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