Waves

What does it mean to come in and out of disability?
In and out of ability?
In and out of oppression?
In and out of privilege?

I fell today. Seemingly meaningless. But to me, a fall down a flight of stairs and a skinned knee mean so much more than that, they mean a lifetime of going in and out of disability. A lifetime that will progressively get harder and harder.

I ran my third half marathon a week ago. I ran it with relative ease. One foot in front of the other, 2.5 hours on my feet, with the world slowly passing by, one breath one step at a time. I felt great, I felt well. I felt healthy.

One moment i am just like all the other able-bodied people around me, probably better abled in fact. I work out 3 hours a day. I am strong, independent, happy. I feel like a poser, when I talk about my disability. I have to explain that its only sometimes. I feel as if I can't be a disabled activist, or a spokesperson, because it is only me sometimes- and what happens anyway? I get numb, I fall down? Those aren't even real problems, I think to myself.

But every few weeks my body talks back. It tells me that it isn't going to work the way other peoples do, that it will give up on me every now and then. That I'm also not one of them, not one of the able-bodied.

And then I am at a loss. Where is my place? What is my future? Where is my support?