Cherry Picking

Okay, other disabled people, I have a question for you. Have you ever noticed that non-disabled people in your life seem to pick and choose what aspects of your disability they will and will not deal with? This is the friend who will come over and visit, but not go out because finding a wheelchair accessible restaurant is just too hard. This is the person who will understand what it is like to encounter an inaccessible building, but will not understand how socializing can be inaccessible. This is the individual who knows all about your deafness and moves heaven and earth to accommodate it, but thinks you should maybe just try harder to be less depressed.
Society creates disability. Society makes dealing with the disability the responsibility of the disabled person. Our loved ones further add to the situation by cheery picking the consequences of our disabilities they do and do not wish to cope with. In this age of unconditional love, disability is somehow outside the bounds of what those who love us are expected to handle. It's somehow too much to ask or expect.
I guess I've missed all the chances in my life I've been given to "decide" if I wish to deal with this or that aspect of my disabilities. Maybe the offer was tendered in print?
Should such a proposition have been made, for my entire adult life, I would have replied that disability is a package deal and to separate it is akin to selling a house one room at a time.
Lately the conditionality with which those around me "accept" my disabilities has begun to irritate me in a way I cannot dismiss. Maybe if the conditionality was explained in terms of their shortcomings. "Jen, I want to drag you to this movie, but I don't think I can describe it. What can I do?" Instead, people just conveniently assume, despite me saying the contrary, that I can't go to movies. Or maybe if it was broached forthrightly. "Jen, what do we do about my other friends who don't know how to interact with a blind person?" Unfortunately, in its place, I'm left to fend for myself.
More and more, I've been feeling like one of those boxes you get at a yard sale or auction. You bought it for the cool bowl on top. When you get it home, you sort through and set aside what you want and what you will discard.
Well, I've decided I'm no longer a yard sale box. I haven't yet figured out how you go about manifesting such a decision in the real world.

What I Want Cured

In the book I'm reading, one character just asked another, "What's worse, bad friends or no friends?" Without considering it for even a second, I said, "No friends." This bothers me. A lot.
In my life, I have learned desperation born of loneliness causes me to make suboptimal choices. I stayed in a relationship too long, continued "friendships" with people who take but do not give, and others indicate people can take advantage of me because of it.
Over the past five months, I have been working on making better choices about the people in my life trying to focus my efforts on those who have the same friendship philosophy as I do. For those I love, I will do all I can to be supportive, be there without having to be asked, and have enough respect for them to speak my mind but allow them to make their own choices. IF a friend needs me, I'll abandon what I want for their need. In other words, the people in my life are a priority.
Fortunately I have a healthy sense of self-preservation that keeps me from abandoning my physical needs. I comprehend that I cannot be a good friend if I'm a mess physically. For a short time, I am able to put aside my own emotional issues to help another.
Somewhere I read/heard that you shouldn't make someone a priority if they consider you an option. I've been trying to follow that advice. With my uncensored answer to whether bad friends or no friends are inferior, I now realize self-delusion is mine. Apparently knowing I deserve better does not translate into not settling for less.
Do disabled people have to settle for less? Are we trained to do it in other areas so find it natural to do the same in relationships of all kinds? Is it fair or right that people evaluate our worthiness for friendship by considering the complications that come along with us? Am I more deluded than I realize?
I may lose a friend because he considers my life to be "too heavy." I keep holding back my instinctive response. "If you think my life is so heavy, shouldn't the fact that you care about me lead you to want to help alleviate that?" I have already said goodbye to him in my hearth. On a fundamental level, I don't expect him to see the worth in me instead only perceiving the harder parts of my life.
Being blind isn't a big deal. Feeling like crap isn't the end of the world. The way people deal with it causes pain I don't have the words to describe. That is what I want fixed. That is what I wish we could cure.

The Contents of a Heart

Oprah proclaims, the Flirtations sing, and our parents teach us that the most important thing in life and the measure of our worth is the quality of the intimate relationships we form. This lesson takes the emphasis off the superficialities of economic status, professional achievements, race and background to focus on who we are as people. It stresses love as the purpose of living and is meant to make us kinder, more caring individuals.

Currently the trappings of success are not evident in my life, so this lesson should be a comfort to me: my disability limits my energy not my heart's ability to care about others. And, yet, instead it seems to mock me. I could be a saint, but few would know. I could be filled with hate, but this too would be rarely known. Without basking in my kindness or withering before my malevolence, how can the nature of my heart and therefore the quality of my love be witnessed? It's like the proverbial tree falling in the woods with nobody to hear it.


I have given this conundrum careful consideration and realized its inherent irony: I lack the trapping of success in my life and this only emphasizes more my difference. For whatever reason, that difference makes people les likely to see me as potential friend. With fewer friends, the contents of my heart is evident less.

So, what's a person to do? My handful of friends get a lot of attention for I have time to listen and space in my head to keep track of important things in their lives. When one bemoaned her inability to do the same for me, we thrashed it out and discovered it is all about math. People have a specific amount of attention to lavish on others. This amount is defined by both the character of their heart and the busyness of their lives. It is then apportioned out amongst their friends – more friends translates into less resources for each person. Most won't simply spend this fixed amount on each friend they have, but devote more to some and less to others. While detached and calculating, this theory explains why people with a vast circle of friends often bemoan not having many intimate connections. And while it also makes clear why my friends say I spoil them, it hasn't solved my problem.

I have made an effort to look for ways I can extend kindness to relative strangers such as baking treats for a memorial service or offering support to somebody I thought needed it. The person thought I was weird and the jury is out on the cookies. I have tried enlarging my circle of intimates by how I interact with friends of friends. No luck yet. Short of hanging out a sign advertizing myself as a stellar friend, I am out of ideas, so I ruminate on the cause.

Over time, I have noticed a decrease in the number of people who have obviously misguided notions of disability. Total silence upon forced interaction with me is no longer the norm. The offer of a guiding arm has increased and being dragged by some body part decreased. Tolerance is on the rise and fills me with joy. People beating down my door to become a part of my life has yet to happen. Why?

Whether it be from school assemblies on how to interact with other disabled students, picking up tips from watching movies, or experience, people have more information about how to behave with a disabled person which explains the increase in positive casual encounters. An understanding of what it means to be disabled does not come with knowing to face a Deaf person when speaking or that service dogs should not be distracted from their jobs. This lack of understanding seems to be at the core of my dilemma.

Since I have always been disabled, I can only offer educated speculation. I used to think people rejected me as potential friend because of the hassles my disability would inherently create – I can't drive to meet them, they might need to function as sighted guide, and who knows what else. While this is probably true in some cases, over the years I have come to realize it is usually more basic. Most people think of disability in terms of what it means the individual cannot do. This laundry list is a barrier through which it is hard for a disabled person's assets to be perceived. When they meet me, people think about all I cannot do because I cannot see as opposed to noticing my quick wit or empathetic tendencies. It isn't a matter of me being considered for friendship and rejected. It is a matter of me never being in the running because I am not a person but a collection of inabilities.

This explanation offers comfort in that it is clear this has nothing to do with me. Unfortunately, the potential solution is time. Just as people have become more educated about how to behave around a disabled person they will also begin to see past the barrier of inabilities to the person. Then I will have a chance for my value to be defined by the love I bestow. Until then I am left to spoil those in my life and ponder the wording of that "stellar friend" billboard.