I don’t want to
write this Slow Lane, but I feel compelled to. I really don’t want to open up,
what appears to me, a can of worms — a subject so sore and misunderstood that
it seems only pain, heartache, and grief ensue. Yet, I’m feeling something
stirring in me, ordering me to walk into this arena and draw attention to this
topic. I don’t walk, so all that’s left to me is to open the subject. I am
disabled.
There has been a
long period, during which I have had to suffer enormous losses. Some of these
losses have left me in a permanent state called disability. Now some souls have
tried to rename this experience to direct attention to other attributes — you
know like, differently-abled and alternately-abled — but they haven’t been able
to erase the fear and ignorance that attends this loss of functioning.
Disability is still perceived, by the majority of people, as something
frightening and de-humanizing. Mostly, people avert their gaze and ignore this
dimension of reality.
What compels me to
write is not the general aversion I am subject to. I’ve gotten used to that.
I’ve been broken-down long enough to have grown through the ignorance, disdain
and fear. I am amongst the disabled folks who have learned to survive in this
place. Basically, I’m pretty lucky — I have friends, colleagues, and others who
see me primarily as one of them. In that sense I’ve succeeded. Many people
don’t see me as disabled, they regard me as if I was like everyone else. In
some ways this is what I, and many of the disabled people I know, long for — a
sense of normalcy, and the acceptance that comes with it.
I have been aware
that I have had a big desire to fit in, to be perceived for what I am, to be
held as a person. I have gifts I want to be able to share. And mostly, I get
to. I don’t call my self “Lucky” by
accident. That is a testament to my perseverance, and to the maturity of the
people around me. As a disabled person, I have it really good.
But here is the
problem. I function so well that the fact that I am disabled is anything but
obvious. So even though I wear an eye patch, speak funny and am in a wheel
chair, I am perceived more for my large and energetic presence, than my low
functioning ways. I suddenly have become aware that through my own efforts, and
the generosity of others, I am not really seen, as the disabled person I am. The
irony I face is this, the effort I’ve put in to not being seen and treated as a
disabled person has resulted in me not being seen and treated as a disabled
person.
So, why is this a
problem? Because the truth is, I am disabled. I am not really able to function
like everyone else. Evidently, to overcome the fear of being reduced by others,
I disregarded my own limitations in favor of fitting in. I have tried to be the
good disabled person. Not at anyone’s insistence, but because I have thought
that fitting in might help me deliver the gift granted me. Now I realize that
strategy dooms me. I can’t keep up. My gift of awareness isn’t enough to
transcend the limitations I actually have to live with. Worse yet, that kind of
complicitous behavior works against another important awareness I have been
keeping to myself.
You see, I’ve been
aware for some time, that I am a kind of precursor. As a disabled person I am
already dealing with the kind of prejudice and ignorance that old people (who
are more slowly losing functioning and becoming disabled) have to deal with.
Ageism, and prejudice against the disabled are on the same continuum. Human
ignorance and fear create both, in different ways, but also in very similar
ways.
I want to be capable
of expressing the full spectrum of what it means to be old during this time. I
also want others to have the support essential for them to give voice to what
being older has to contribute to this era. If I let my disability become
invisible and unseen then I am playing along with the belief that there is
nothing for the old and infirm to contribute. I am also participating in the
life-denying prejudice I abhor.
I know I probably
have made some people uncomfortable along the way, I’m sorry about that. But,
and here is the nature of my dilemma, while I am not a crusader for the
disabled, I am trying to stir up awareness about the difficulties and beauties
of being human, especially older humans. Sometimes I blunder along the way.
Pardon my unbalanced and brain-damaged gait, it might be similar to your own,
disabled in some ways and broken in others. Fitting in, while tempting, is a
trap, that prevents Nature’s profusion from coming through us. The wonder of a
broken-down person like me isn’t evident, and doesn’t shine fully on other
people’s possibilities.
