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Home / Thoughts / Other's Thoughts / Re-evaluating what I’m doing…

Re-evaluating what I’m doing…

Written by Alex on Sunday, May 28, 2006

I’ve thought about what I’m doing and about what I would do differently in my life (who hasn’t, right) and what I am proposing to do. Is it the right thing?

Well I suppose the question of is it the right thing is relative, isn’t it? Is it right for me to feel wrong? Is it right for me to lie to others? Is it right to lie to myself?

Somebody once said “to thine own self be true”. In the end I think that this is true. I mean if we are our own happiness then why not do what makes us most happy, or self aware, or even comfortable with what we are. I have thought and thought about this and I just can’t seem to find a happy medium. Do I want to do this? Or is it just some sick fantasy? Do I really feel the need to put up with the stares, the questions, the work of crutching through the snow and wheeling through the rain?

Yes, and no. I’m not looking forward to the easy life, it’s true using crutches will be harder, wheeling will burn more calories (okay now there’s a benefit!) Doing this will actually make my physical life harder. Maybe my mental life too. I’ll have to see as I am not accustomed to lying to most people, especially people I love and respect and that will be hard for a while until they become settled with the new me.

What will bother me are the questions in the beginning. Remember, I live in a small town and 2 minutes after getting out of the car on crutches I’ll have to start explaining myself. The same thing will happen the first time I happen to meet up with someone I know in the local supermarket when I show up in my chair. It will be like hobbling the gauntlet!

And what happens when this becomes a chronic problem? Or will anything happen? Will I just become another crip? That’s something I’ll have to see about, maybe treat it as some grand, mad experiment.

Speculation is all well and good and admittedly I am chomping at the bit to see if I can actually pull this off. I have my moments of anticipation followed by panic. Honestly, I had a moment of enlightenment the other day when I tripped on the stairs to the basement at work and landed on my butt. I only broke a fingernail, but the thought did go through my head that that could have been the accident, nothing on purpose, nothing planned it just happened. It actually scared me because I knew I wouldn’t have had any choice in the matter. I could have tumbled down those old stairs and broken my neck, wound up a quad, or I could have been bruised and embarrassed. Disappointed either way.

Will I grow enough to want to expand my horizons, move to another place, another job? I dunno. Do you realize how hard it is for me to not have the answers? No of course not.