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What if?
I’m sure “What if?” isn’t a unique question. Everyone wonders from time to time what would’ve happened if they were to take that job, go on that trip, say yes or no to an opportunity. Or, another angle: I’m the result of all the previous choices I made, all of the previous “Me”s, who considered and lost sleep and paced around the room and cried and laughed.
However, in some of the darker moments, a different kind of a “What if?” question crawls back to my thoughts. What if I were to grow up without my disability? Would I recognize that version of me? Which opportunities did I miss, and which new ones I gained, in this different version of life? The answers are my special pity party, yes. But when I feel better, I often find they can be helpful at pointing out the problems still left to be solved.
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Crossroads
I’ve wrote many posts, texts and messages about my long-standing hate of walking. The thing is, I also hate metaphorical walking. That is, the one where you end up in a crossroad, which is of course symbolic, actually standing for an important life decision. What way should I choose? Where should I go? So many other smarter and more creative people than me described the feeling.
What I’ve come to fear about crossroads is the way they tend to bring up what you tried to forget. The things you barely notice anymore. I try so hard to not let my disability influence my decisions in life too much. I have to keep it in mind, of course, but I try to act out of passion, not fear; and when disability takes the wheel, I’m not brave. So I try to calm down, sleep well, and see what I’m excited about, instead of what makes me dreadful. The process served me well so far.
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Buttons
I love buttons. That is, physical buttons. It’s childish, but I like pushing them. One of the first things I’ve noticed here in the U.S is that most doors have big buttons next to them. These magical, fun buttons make the doors open, and spare me the need to put my weight and power to the tiring task of pushing a heavy door.
The thing is, I got used to the buttons. I now carry things in my left hand, while pushing them with my right palm or elbow. And so, I was very confused when a few days ago, one of the friendly buttons at the coffee shop next to my bus station was not working. I already had my coffee and stood in front of the door, confused. “Let me get that for you,” said someone from behind me, and held it open. “Have a good one.”
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Problems
Every time I leave the house, I pack a bag. I try to be prepared for all kinds of problems: I take a contact lenses liquid bottle, an extra pair of glasses, my apartment key, a hearing aids charger… The two items that make me relax immediately are my credit card and the pack of band-aids. I’ve noticed that the problems I’m most scared of are the ones that can’t be solved by one of the two.
I fell last week, and I still have a healing wound on my right knee. It started bleeding again right before I left the house today, wearing cream colored pants. That’s a stain and a fashion disaster just waiting to happen. But not on my watch – I took the band-aids box out of my bag and put one on the bruise. Crisis managed! That was the most mature thing I did lately. Then again, it was a band-aid/credit card problem. What about the rest?
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Nights
Sometimes I have long days for no particular reason. I lay awake in bed, just thinking and taking some time to myself, considering the past day. That ritual clears my head. Most of the days it feels like a waste of time: I didn’t do anything special. I’m just tired, time to admit it and start trying to sleep.
The thing is, even regular days are tiring now. Walking to the dining hall, back to my room, to the bus station, from the bus station to the law school, from classroom to classroom, taking part in discussions in a second language. Then coming back home to sleep and do it all again. So I take a few minutes and allow myself to say I’m tired. As I close my eyes, I try to be excited about the next day.
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Balance
Much of my life is about balance. I don’t mean that in the spiritual sense this time. Maintaining physical balance is figuring out the right way to carry things and myself from place to place, without them or me falling. I’ve been conducting multiple experiments at that for the last 23 years, not all of them successful.
I was faced with a new challenge concerning balance here in the U.S. I have to carry two heavy law casebooks, a computer and a microphone around almost all the time. I settled on taking a tote bag folded in the backpack, should my back hurt and I’ll need it during the day. On the brighter side, when I arrive somewhere and take the weight off my shoulders, I feel so light, I might fly away.
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A Roach
Last week I had a roach in my room. That’s not blog-worthy, but what happened afterward is. I thought it’s a test of my independence and decided to find a way to get it out of the room. first, I unsuccessfully tried to trap it in a cap. I didn’t succeed in that, so I resorted to violence. The roach ran to my bathroom and I threw my boot on it.
I almost fell and needed to grab something to stabilize myself, the roach ran and the boot landed far from it. But as I tried to recover and take another go at it, I couldn’t help but notice the absurdity of the situation. Supposed I was to fall and be somehow injured by that, it would’ve been one of the stupidest ways possible to get a new scar. I laughed for a minute, dropped the boot again, and called pest control.
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Motivation
One of the times we traveled in Argentina, I got really tired of walking. I stopped moving and stood still in the middle of the street. My mom, being not only a creative person but also a very rational one, thought all I need is some motivation. She promised me she’ll buy me an alfajor the next time we’ll pass a stand that sells them. It worked like magic.
And so it happened that before we took off to New York last summer, my parents had an important tip for my aunt. “She has to eat every three hours,” they said. She listened. When I got tired somewhere in Manhattan, she located the closest fried chicken place. Suddenly, I felt much better.
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Mirrors
I have a problem seeing myself in videos. They’re so “alive”, so close to reality, they capture the weirdness of my moves so well. It’s not the right thing to say, but I get embarrassed and self aware of my disability when I watch a video. Mirrors are usually less of a problem: if you don’t move, the figure in them doesn’t move. In that sense, they’re closer to photos.
There’s only one exception to my relative comfort with mirrors: I can’t watch myself when I just wake up. Often, I feel like the character without the hearing aids, with the always-dirty glasses and in her pajamas, is not me. Something seems off. It takes 20 minutes or so of getting ready, and at some points in there I feel as if I’m turning into myself. At the end of it, I try to smile.
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Bus Station
I bought a season pass ticket for all the college sports events. I thought it’ll be an unforgettable experience. I’m not a football person: I Googled “how many quarters football game” during the halftime performance of the first game. But being a part of 100,000 people screaming in unison is special, so I went to the second game.
I was so focused on not getting pushed when the game ended, I forgot to look down, didn’t notice the edge of the sidewalk and fell. Faster than I could scream, three men were at my side, waiting for me to tell them how they can assist. I asked for help getting up, thanked them after I was on my feet again and kept walking. I wanted to get as far as I could from the swarm of people leaving the stadium. Then I sat on a bench in a bus station next to my dorms, and waited to feel brave enough to move.
DisBlueCircle 