crypticgirl

It's been a good birthday.

Thanks to everyone who sent me well wishes via various media. Thanks to the huggers-in-person. Thanks to those of you who quietly offer me love and support on a regular basis without asking for anything in return. Thanks to all of you really, for being your wonderful selves and being in my life. I feel like I learn so much from all of you on a daily basis.

No, I'm not drunk (...anymore). No, the impromptu ten pin bowling session with another half blind person (wherein the key questions in life became "Why do I keep getting so many gutterballs?" and "Is it my turn? I can't see the screen.") didn't cause any brain damage. I'm just feeling very loved at a time when I needed reminding of it. I may be alone in the sense that I'm not in a relationship right now, but I'm not alone in far more ways. I'll have to come back to this post when I need a kick up the bum.

After saying all that, talking about presents seems trivial. So I won't, except to say that I really appreciated Matt's gift because it was given with such generosity of spirit (he gave up his ticket to see Adam Hills so I could go), and I loved the card from my Mum. It just said lots of stuff about how she feels about me being her daughter. I'm glad we can express those things to each other.

I also bought myself a present this year, in the form of attendance at a workshop that I really enjoyed. I think getting myself a present should be a new tradition. :)

This year will be my last year in my twenties. I keep wondering where the time has gone, it feels like I've done so little with and there's so much left to do. In that sesne it would be great to be able to turn back the clock. On the other hand, I know I've had to go through a lot of stuff to get to where I am now, and where I am now is a pretty good place, relatively speaking. I look back on the person I was at nineteen and feel like I've come a long way.

I can only hope that when I'm thirty nine I can look back over the coming decade with the same sense. There are many things I want to do, yes, but a lot of it is fine detail. If I manage to grow as a person and work to make the world a better place in this lifetime then I will consider myself very lucky indeed.

1. Change is slow. Don't beat yourself up about that fact. Don't stop. Change is slow. It will come.

2. You're stronger than you think. Trust what you know. Trust who you are.

3. Being weak isn't a crisis. It's a change. Move through it as you would any other change. Live it.

I was going to write all sorts of ranty and/or quasi-intellectual crap in honour of the International Day of People with Disabilities, which is just coming to a close here in Australia. Instead I think I'm going to force myself to say some hard things.

People often tell me they forget that I'm disabled when they meet me in person. I've written in here before about how I never forget, about how my mind gets to do jigsaw puzzles every time I go somewhere new, or how I slot words into even the most slowly paced conversations sometimes because I don't hear them. That's one kind of struggle. I've talked about how sometimes I feel as though people treat me differently in subtle, non-discriminatory ways, even if they're not actually doing so. That's another kind of struggle, though it's brought on by the same problem: I can't get enough information about how other people are treated because I don't see it or hear it as often.

( struggling on )