We Don't Live in Parking Lots

I may have told the story before, but it's a good one (and a short one). When I was a kid my parents had to have disabled parking signs put up in front of our house. My neighbors would throw parties and people would park in front of our house and we'd have to trek up the block. So the city came and put up signs. One day, years later, a woman parked there. A cop cruising through the neighborhood saw her car and stopped to write her a ticket. She came flying out of a neighbor's house. When the cop continued writing the ticket she exclaimed. "But this is a residential area!" to which the police officer replied, "Where do you think handicapped people live? In parking lots?!?"

I never wanted to be an advocate for disabled rights or a role model to disabled women or anything like that. I spent high school being referred to as "the girl in the wheelchair." Don't get me wrong, it was never in a malicious way. I was very well liked in school. It just wasn't how I thought of myself. The whole is more than the sum of its parts. It would be like being "the black kid" or "the fat kid". Those things may color a person's interactions with the world, but in my experience that's not how people define themselves. I know I never thought of myself as "the girl in the wheelchair".

I never thought about myself that way, so I never expected other people to. I've had friends tell me that they forget about it. I always tell them that's because I do. For years I never did anything to draw attention to my disability. I didn't hide it either it was simply a fact like my height. I never paid it any more attention than I thought it deserved. It didn't limit me anymore than my height did.

I was afraid to be "that girl", but more than that I just never thought about it. When I got into an amazing acting program for college I knew I was living my dream, this was it. It took me a year to realize, like my height, I brought my disability to every part I played. It was a Holocaust play I was killed in the end and a friend said "oh yeah, you wouldn't have been able to work." I was stunned. She isn't...Oh! Now she is. Woah.

I lived my dream. I finished my BFA and went out into the wide, wide world. I worked myself to the bone to survive and keep the dream going despite fresh hip injuries. It was all behind me now. All the surgeries I had as a kid were over now. I was an adult now. I was focused, determined none of the other stuff mattered.

New York gave me one good starring role in a play and kicked my butt thoroughly. Los Angeles was my home as it turned out. I paid my bills and worked as an actor. I was really happy. I thought that I'd be there forever. I had done everything I was supposed to do: got through school with good grades, got a degree from an excellent school, moved to the right city, used every opportunity to my advantage and now it was only a matter of time.

All that stuff I hadn't been thinking about made its presence known. I felt so betrayed. I felt like a failure for not being able to get through it alone. I thought I'd take a short break, have a change of scenery and come right back.

Age, injury, pregnancy weight gain, and an extremely active lifestyle conspired with those pre-existing conditions. How could I have known a bomb was ticking all that time? Six months away from LA turned into almost as many years as I lived there in the first place. How could I know after almost ten years without one there would be more surgeries? I never intended to trade everything I had for motherhood and a rollercoaster of orthopedic procedures.

I hate my body for betraying me. If I can't have a career I want to be super mom. My body says "No." I can't ignore it anymore, apparently 27yrs was the limit on that. I never liked it when people said "Life is what happens when you're busy making plans." The other one I hated is "Sometimes on your way to a dream, you find a new one." Not me. I thought those sayings were for the unfocused and lazy.

Now here I am, so many miles from where I started. I’m forced to think about my disability and consider more surgery. Trying to cope with the death of my dream and embrace a new one. So now for better or worse I'm the "Disabled Mom." Sigh...

I suppose there are worse things to be. I can't help, but feel strange letting go of all the things that worked for so long. This is where life took me with no regards for my plans. I write about it. That's what life is now, at least for now.