Monday, October 4, 2021

About Me Monday: Dis-Ability

 

Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay

A response to the following post:

It may appear that I'm scolding the author for their thoughts. That honestly is not my intent. If I were still fully able-bodied, it is likely that I wouldn't have thought about the fact that being physically incapable of performing certain activities does not only affect the elderly. People can become disabled at any stage of their lives. There are elderly people who are more physically able than I am and young people who are less so.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am on the high side of 56 years old at the time of this writing.

Sometimes it isn't age hindering a person but physical disability. If my body had allowed me to, I would have been one of those people that participated in "youthful" activities at an advanced age. Unfortunately, by the time I hit 50, my crap endocrine system plus all the injuries over the years of working physically demanding jobs caught up with me and ran me over. At not even 60, I require a walker to ambulate more than very short distances.

This is something that I didn't mention in the original comment. There's a fellow in town who always takes it upon himself to give me pep talks whenever he sees me. "You're doing great, Honey, keep up the good work!" When I try to tell him that I'm just taking a walk and I don't expect any significant physical improvement, he tells me "you've gotta believe in yourself, Honey!" 

Sigh.

There's another fellow who always asks if I want help bringing my walker up the stairs. Unfortunately, we don't have the money to have a ramp put up. The walker isn't that heavy. It doesn't weigh more than 10 pounds on the outside, and I don't think it weighs that much. I leverage it so that "walking" it up the stairs doesn't hurt my lower back. 

I always tell this chap that if I can't do it myself, I can't do it, so thanks but no thanks.

It's one thing to offer help to a disabled person--or anybody--who is really struggling, i.e. with multiple parcels or such. I can't speak for everybody, but I've heard other disabled people say the same thing. We don't want pity, pep talks, or offers of help for things that we can do for ourselves.

If you really want to help me, you can come to clean my house. Housekeeping is something that I royally suck at. I sucked at it when I was able-bodied too.

~Ornery Owl Has Spoken~

Image by Tanuj Handa from Pixabay
Ornery Owl has had enough of your shyyyyt. And by shyyyyt, I mean unsolicited pep talks.

The Icky, Sticky, Nit-Picky Legalese If You Please (Or Don't Please)


Creative Commons License


This work is the intellectual property of Naughty Netherworld Press/Poetry of the Netherworld.

Reblogging is acceptable on platforms that allow it. Odysee’s reblog function is called repost, which makes things confusing since reposting is considered a no-no on most platforms. It’s fine to share the post using the repost function on Odysee. It is not okay to copy-paste the material into a new post.

Sharing a link to the post is acceptable.

Quoting portions of the post for educational or review purposes is acceptable if proper credit is given.

Want some poetry?
Get it here!

Buy me a coffee

Or buy me a coffee here

Join me on Odysee

Join me on Patreon!
Subscribe for as little as $1 per month.

Get the latest literary happenings and slices of life in your inbox!

1 comment:

This is a safe space. Be respectful.