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Home / Thoughts / Sean's Thoughts / If they only knew

If they only knew

Written by Sean on Wednesday, September 28, 2005

While I spend the majority of my public life as a wheelchair user, I sometimes walk. The reasons for that are many and varied, and too long to explain here. But on the rare occasions I walk, I sometimes get asked by the people who see me in the chair about why I’m walking.

This afternoon, I stopped to grab a coffee at the local brew joint. The guy at the counter remarked “Hey Sean, you appear not to be using a wheelchair today?”. I couldn’t help telling him that he had “a keen sense of the obvious”. That brought a few laughs from his colleagues.

I did tell him that I sometimes have good days and sometimes have bad days, and that is why I sometimes walk, and sometimes wheel.

Of course, when I say that, people tend to assume that if I’m walking I’m having a good day. How wrong they are!

No, in fact, I’m having a good day when I wheel. The cause/effect relationship is not using the chair pending on what kind of day I’m having. It is more a question of feeling better because I’m using the chair.

Ahh, all this gets complicated. :)