In my new family by marriage, we like to preface a good story with, “this is a story about…” Thus the title of this article. I plan on this being a new series, so I’m not diving in too deeply into any particular aspect that I am touching on tonight. Let’s call this an overview.
I may have come across harshly with a couple of Twitter folks last week when the topic of being disability came up, so I want to discuss the topic a bit. Explore the water. Clear the air. Join in and let’s see how the community feels. I really hope this isn’t too disjointed, because it ended up in four separate articles by the time I was done.
Upon reading this, some of you may love me more or hate me and never come back. Who I am, though, is a very cut-and-dry, black and white person. I see very little gray in the world, though I’ve been through enough of those muckety-muck college courses to hear about how the world is painted in monochrome, but I don’t buy it for a nickel.
I guess I’m saying, “you’ve been warned if you want to just keep thinking of me a nice, positive guy who thinks the best of everyone and wants to help people;” because I am, but I’m also an onion with many layers. I chose these two photos for this piece because they capture my attitude pretty well. I only listen to those who have my ear through earning my respect from friendship, past experience, or academia that isn’t useless academia. I will go up that hill. I will gain this weight. I will live a long and healthy life with Beautiful. I will not accept anything less than the best for us.
This is a story about dependence…
In Tampa, there was/is this program called Abilities that I used their assistance around 1998 because I was a poor college student who wanted to lessen the burden from my parents’ budget for all of my extra food and some medical supplies. I had a job working at the cancer lab on campus for $5.15/hr that year, which basically paid for my gas and let me go to a movie per week, which I went to early to study in the big, quiet theater. Abilities needed all of my food and medical receipts and pay stubs to process everything, then I got a reimbursement check. Isn’t it nice that they didn’t bother to help me with budgeting or making sure I was making the money I was earning work for me? They didn’t teach me to fish, they just gave me as little fish as possible to live on “better.”
