Saturday, October 08, 2005

Grounds eye view

I always thought the best way to get a good view was to climb to the top of something.

And though I still agree in person it is a breathtaking perspective, I've had to learn new perspective now that I am "grounded".

Its odd. The thought of disability turning into ability was such a stupid idea to me. I thought that there was no stopping someone who had the will and determination to do something.

Now I am not sure, but I think maybe "disability" is more of a means of sorting people out, not holding them back.

In my new grounds eyes perspective I find I am slower to walk away from things. I have to be. Rushing means stress, stress means tension, tension means pain. Pain is a constant in a life with Syringomyelia and 3D (Degenerative disc disease). Yet there are ways of lessening it. The idea of a slow and purposfully driven act was a foreign concept. Now it feels predetermined, at one point even I have to stop to smell the roses.

I find now that I see things than I had not before. I have found that giving things up is easier, and passing things by is simpler. I have found that I can be happy simply having known and lost. I am taking my passions and cycling them into who I am to be.

It feels to me pain has sharpened my focus and made me very thankful to have the life I have. I could and have looked at my disability as a setback, stumbling block and burden. Much as a woman would look at her period, menopause, old age.

The world is full of all types of people and they all have different things that drive them and hold them back. But it is those whom embrace themselves for exactly who they are who become memorable.

I want to look in the mirror and see me staring back at me. Perhaps it will always be with a cane in my hand, there might be more wrinkles or a wheelchair. It will be what I do and who I am that will be remembered. When people think back on President Rosevelt they think of his disability as an afterthought. They do not automatically think "wheelchair" I think that with all that a disability can take away, perspective may be the biggest gift recieved.

The choice on where to go from here can't be made by anyone else, I won't find the answers in a book or bottom of a tea cup. The only conjuring of use to me will be that of my own.

I choose to take my camera take a picture,write a story of the people. This may be the only thing that I will do well, but now that everything has fallen into view I'll know to do it.

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