“Is it everything you hoped for?” Grace asked as she walked up to me showing off some parts of my new chair to a few other people in church this morning.
“Nope.”
I’m so, so grateful for this new chair. It’s hot pink, has fold down handles, and I’ll never get an accidental bill from the company because it’s fully funded, and I’m not responsible for paying for it or paying for maintenance thanks to the NZ Ministry of Health.
It’s also got one significant feature incorrect that’s not easily fixed which negatively impacts my speed and comfort.
There will be a creative solution, and I’ll still end up better off, but to be honest, I don’t have the emotional capacity to explain the implications on the internet right now.
I had an impromptu call yesterday with one of my favourite writers and humans, Sarah, who is currently drafting a piece for her own blog about visible disability and how we just have to live with stuff that sucks but it actually has a lasting emotional toll that able bodied people don’t understand. I try really hard to articulate that kind of stuff here, but I’m tapped out for now. I’d recommend reading all of Sarah’s stuff in general, but her next post will be a doozy as she recounts something deeply personal and nuanced. In some ways, it’ll have nothing to do with my imperfect wheelchair, but in others, it’ll parallel a lot of my mixed emotions living in an inaccessible world with a disability.
