Blog > Thoughts > Other's Thoughts > Elisabeth's thoughts > Nine Months
Nine Months
Written by Elisabeth on Tuesday, August 17, 2010
So it’s been nine months since I started wheeling. The time it takes to bring a new human being into the world. Have I been born yet or am I still growing to be born as a wheeler?
The birth hasn’t happened yet. I consider myself a wheeler but it’s not black and white. I wheel most of the time but there are a few groups of people who have never seen me wheel. I see them once a month. Most of them have no clue I use a wheelchair on a daily basis. And then there are all my friends back home across the ocean, having no clue. I don’t wheel in my house. My neighbours have never seen me wheel. For some people, I am definitely a wheeler. For some, I am definitely a walkie. For some, I am a pretender. For me, what am I? Who am I?
I am a wheeler, I am a walkie, I am a pretender. I am a person with BIID and that is making the answer so complicated. I am an AB. I am a PWD. I am both. I am fully neither. I hate that in-between state. It is convenient to be able to choose to walk or not. I have never filled up my car from a wheelchair. But is it comfortable? Does the choice bring any comfort to my soul? No, it doesn’t. I want to be clearly perceived as a wheelchair user. I need to be an amputee wheelchair user. I need to be perceived as an amputee. I need to be one but that is probably not going to happen. Driving one of the safest cars doesn’t help that either. But I am drifting here, letting my thoughts take their course. My thoughts are confused about my identity. My identity is being both and none. My identity is that of being in between AB and PWD. There is no label I can put on my body except the label of BIID. Is that what makes BIID sometimes so unbearable? The pain of not belonging? The pain of not experiencing either world fully?
I think I might be starting to get glimpses of Sean’s despair. My wheeling has opened up a new world for me. New opportunities. New friends. It brought a lot of understanding and less judgment into my life. I treasure that very much. I love being able to look at others and see their imperfections and struggles without judging them. It happens more and more to me. It would have not happened without wheeling and thus experiencing life from a very different perspective. But the feeling of not belonging is very intense. I have not crossed the abyss. I have not been born yet as an amputee. I am a wheeler but there is no birth. There is only death. Death to trying to be perceived as normal. Death to enjoying walking on my feet. Death to judging people who are different. But where is the birth? I and my body are not one. I and my wheelchair are not one. I want to be one with myself. But there is no crossing of the abyss. There is no birth. There is only labour pains without experiencing the light at the end.
Tags: Birth, Normal, perspective, Wheeling
This entry appears in Elisabeth's thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
2 Comments
I consider myself, and always have, a pwd unable to treat my condition adequately since i am obliged to walk in almost all circumstances. I would not always have been able to articulate it so clearly, but i have felt that way as long as i can remember, even in childhood. It is, indeed, very hard to live life this way.
Post your comments
© transabled.org - 1994-2012 - All Rights Reserved.
1 On 16 August, 2010, Sean said:
The in-between certainly is difficult. Neither one thing, nor the other. And it isn’t a question of being able to ride both positively. It’s more like we’re excluded from either, not belonging fully anywhere.
It is hard.