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Home / Stories / Personal Histories / Sean's Story / My Story 4

My Story 4

Written by Sean on Thursday, January 1, 1998

Wow, time flies, and much more than the 6 months I was thinking of elapsed time since I wrote the last installment. Been busy with re-vamping of the site lately, but now, time to talk about what’s happened to me in the last few months.

So many ups and downs, hard to relate… It’s almost impossible to remember all. I’ll start towards the end of summer ‘97. I knew not where I was headed with work, having been jerked around by a lady offering me a contract that didn’t pan out. I went somewhere else instead, and lost it. I mean, I lost my mind and the nerve to carry on in my trade. I was in need of a haven to stop and take time to re-focus on myself and what I wanted from life and how I’d get there.

And so I called a dear friend and asked if I could come for a couple weeks, just time enough to get out of the darkness. Louise was nice enough to accept. And hence I came here.

I found an accepting ear, tender arms to console me, and a feeling of warmth I had never really felt to this level before. I came for a two weeks visit, and three months later, I’m still here… See, in the meantime, somewhere between totally unexpected and probably unavoidable, we fell in love. Thanks to her, I feel better than I have in a long while. And she accepts me totally, with all my quirks, chair, braces and all. I forget to mention she herself is a para (yes, that’s a little bit of bragging…)

Louise introduced me to friends of hers, disabled and not, brought me to her workplace (local rehab institute), and that allowed me to meet several more people that are teaching me more about disability in general. I haven’t really been out without my chair since I’ve been here, and that too is good.

So, I’m allowing myself to live this "pretending" life as much as I can, and the person I’m with allows it to happen. We both find advantages in it. It’s good. I have more time to just be me, I don’t spend as much time worrying about other things (like how screwed up I am… :-))) ), I can just relax, for once.

I don’t have to pretend to be something I’m not, I just am myself. I use the chair, or not. And there are several other aspects of this relationship that I’m not getting into, but the whole is that I think I finally found a good thing.

I’ve been accused to be on a pretending binge. And that hurt me. But I had to ask myself if I was or not. If one’s willing to look within, one has to look at all questions/accusations carried against one. So, I looked, and asked myself if this was only a pretending binge, only for the sake of pretending and being finally allowed to do it.

I don’t see it. Sure, I enjoy immensely the possibility of using the chair, and not feeling put down, I enjoy meeting with other PWD. I enjoy all that. It offers me a certain sense of validation. But there is a lot more to it than that.

I’ve received now more than 60 000 visits to the site. That means something. That means I’m reaching out to some people. According to the statistics gathered, there is only about 20% of people that come more than 5 times on the site. I can’t believe it grew this much. But because of this, I’ve come to see myself as a help for people to understand themselves and others. I hope I can help them, you, as much as working on the site has helped *me*!

Wow, this is definitely ego inflating. :-)) Well, yeah, what’s wrong with that? It helps me feel good to know I’m helping a bit other people. So, where does all this leave me? I’m feeling good about myself, in more ways than I have in a loooong time. I’m still looking for where I’m heading in my trade as a chef, but that will eventually sort itself out I’m in love an living with a wonderful woman. I think that the wind is starting to inflate my sails… Murphy not far behind ready to screw it all up, but in the meantime, I enjoy what I have and am looking for ways to keep it that way.

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