It was one of those days when it was $hitty to be disabled. Not because I thought it was $hitty but because others just didn’t want to understand what it’s like to have an invisible disability.
I keep on inviting my brother and his girlfriend to our home for dinner because Matt and I have had deaths in our family and I think that makes you want to hang onto who ever you have left in your family.
Matt’s girlfriend wanted us to go to a buffet lunch that is an hour drive one way so that she could pay us back for dinners, unnecessary, but okay.
I explained to her that that kind of drive is a struggle for us and we just don’t do it anymore. She knows I have fibromyalgia, she knows I’ve had back surgery. We expressed a desire to meet them and said we would try.
It just didn’t work out. When I texted her. She texted me back that she makes that drive 2 or 3 times per month. Thank you for reminding me that able bodied people can do things that disabled people can’t!!!! I think she is close to my age. I am not sure if she realized what she was doing. But, it felt like she was rubbing it in. No, I’m not able to drive for a couple of hours in one day – Not unless last night and yesterday were perfect. When we travel, we pay extra to arrive at least one day before an event to assure that I can rest. It’s the price of fibromyalgia.
(Eduardo Soares with unsplash)
We then decided to go to the grocery store. I always get a disabled buggy from the front of the store. The weird thing about my back injury is that even though I can walk, I cannot stand. I must sit every few minutes. Rather than worry about it, I always get the wheelchair buggy and use that to get around.
My husband uses a regular shopping cart, we are a pair. I am literally not allowed to put anything into my buggy, I always forget and then I have to return to the store to pay for the forgotten item. Today business at the grocery store was just getting hectic when we decided to check out. I started toward one of only two open lanes. The handicapped carts are slow and kind of dragging.
On the aisle to the checkout, this sporty looking woman who was assuredly my age, ran up to my spot and got in front of me. As she completed her checkout, with me behind her, she turned around and smiled at me smugly, as if she had accomplished something, by getting in front of the disabled lady. Wow, what kind of person sees that as an accomplishment?
That was today. Most days aren’t like this, but there it was today.