I am so totally from Barcelona

Today I had my last day volunteering with what will soon be my paid workplace. In the afternoon we had a meeting which gave me a much clearer idea of just how big the gaps in my knowledge are. In my current job, I'm expected to be across a range of issues for one disability group. This task isn't easy, but it's made more simple by the fact that I happen to have that disability; my experiences aren't the only valid ones, obviously, but they do provide a starting point or a point of reference.

In the new job I will be expected to be across the same breadth of issues for a much wider range of disability types. I've had contact with some of these disability types before through friends or family members, but that's not the same thing as lived experience. In some cases I've never even encountered someone with that disability (that I've been aware of). I'm certain that it would be a rare thing indeed to find someone who combined all the disabilities we cover and who was able to do the job. I'm just also aware that the level of responsibility I've felt giving voice to a community I call my own is about to ramp up significantly. Will I be able to do it? What if I can't?

Oh well. There's no way anyone could accuse me of settling for a comfortable life. Unless you wanted to get really smart-arsed about it and say that discomfort is my comfort.