One of the first times I might have realized that I was less than able-bodied was when I was washing my car. Long ago, I ditched the mop bucket and suds as just too darned inefficient and not having a driveway tended to limit my do-it-yourself tendencies. In fact, I was in an on-again, off-again relationship with the $7, automatic car washes. That particular day, it was off again. Instead, I was at the we-say-its-50-cents-but-really-its-5-dollars places where, joy of joys, you do it yourself. Did I mention you pay them for you to wash your own car?
Anyway, this sort of place appealed to me. It was spartan, straight forward and if you did it right, you could save money. That really appealed to me. It was "Beat the Clock," but you're playing for your own money. So, I was on the third trip with the foaming wand--what?--and I was huffing and limping. I was on the power rinse, and I was puffing and gimping. By the second coat of wax--enough already!—I was beet red, my heart was in my ears, and I couldn't stand up because my back was not just on fire with pain, it wouldn't respond to my commands to straighten. My wife had this look on her face that said "Do I call 911 or just scream for help?" I almost told her that screaming for help is cheaper.
I was just on the edge of consciousness when I saw the light. No, not that light. I understood the painful truth that it was, in fact, cheaper to go to those $7 car washes when you figured in the hospital co-pays.
Sometimes the last one to admit a person has a disability isn’t a doctor. It isn’t the judge. Sometimes, it’s the person with the disability who refuses to acknowledge it. That day, I wasn’t ready to admit I had a disability. I was just ready to shift my car washing habits. Quite honestly, the notion of admitting I was less than able-bodied or disabled was terrifying to me. There was a long, dark corridor down that line of thought that I didn’t want to consider.
Eventually, however, the facts catch up with you as they did with me. I couldn’t deny that the accommodations I was making in my lifestyle were to compensate for my inability to do anything else. My changing of careers was as much to stop traveling as it was to earn more, even though I loved traveling on business. My sedentary job itself was because I couldn’t handle more physical ones. Was I proud of it? Nuh-uh, but you couldn’t get me to confess that I couldn’t. I wanted to work indoors. Really I did.
Owning up and facing the bitter truth that you have lost an ability, perhaps for the rest of your life, is something that takes time. We're not meant to lose these abilities, and accepting that we have is a bruise on our egos. Once we do, we can pick up and go forward with life. How soon we move on is just as individual as the person and the disability they suffer, but the point is to move on, to not get stuck on the loss. The pain is real, the loss is real, but letting it become what you orbit, what your life centers on, breaks your momentum and you head in a different direction than where you wanted to go. It takes effort to get back on track, but unless you want to be a passenger and not a driver of your life, that's the effort everyone facing a disability must make.
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