Thursday, March 15, 2018

The Rescue

I could feel it in my hands, even though it wasn't there. I was sitting in my wheelchair, alone and overwhelmed. I felt my inadequacies keenly. It's in moments like these that I come closest to despair. It's in moments like these that I question who I am, who I'm supposed to be, and feel that the world has been cheated by getting this Dave and not that Dave.

I was immobilized. Not by my disability. Not by the wheelchair. But by the weakness of that comes when the darkness within cast shade on any possible light. I knew I had to do something.

This is not the first time that I've experienced this.

I've had messages for most of my life about my worth as a human being.

Not good enough.

Not smart enough.

Too fat.

Too ugly.

Too stupid.

I hear the words attached to those messages. I no longer wonder if those who used them realize that I, by the nature of my construction, would have to bear their weight my whole life long. I think not of them, but of me. And what I am.

It's in moments like these that I forget that I have it. Hidden away. Far away and deep inside, I have kept it safe.

It's a photograph, not the kind taken by cameras but the kind taken when a moment in time intersects with magic and flashed by joy. I have a few of these. But there is one. It's far to personal to describe, but it's there. I look at it sparingly because the light from it hurts me. Like when a bandage closes a wound, it hurts.

I felt it in my hands, this picture.

And I looked at it.

From the photograph slowly came strength. Slowly came a new language into my mind. Language that suggested that I do have strength, that my own voice is as powerful as the ones that ripped me down, that I can go and I can do.

And that.

Of course.

Doing Damns The Darkness.

2 comments:

clairesmum said...

......remembering that 'doing damns the darkness'....a new day begins......hoping that there is some lightness in this day for you.

ABEhrhardt said...

Sorry you have to spend time rebulding your self. It hurts. But it makes you even better, and you're pretty darn great already.