I am about to tell all of you able body and minded people something. It is something you all know and have stored away somewhere in the back of your heads. It is kept in the same place that you put the things you do not want to remember: embarrassing moments from high school, dates you have bombed, your worst fears.
It is more likely that you will become disabled at some point in your life than not.
It may be short-term, like a broken broke bone or surgery. For a short while, you will realize just how inaccessible the world is. How many things you can not do simply because the world is not set up to accommodate what you need. You may get the sympathy of some people for a few weeks. It will dwindle. After a while, people will start to become annoyed that you haven’t ‘gotten back to normal yet’.
What if you never do? What if the broken bone leads to a severed limb? Is that too hard to think about? Does cancer seem more in your reality? Does dementia or diabetes run in your family? Have you ever thought one wrong move and you could have a brain injury? One flu-like illness and you could have chronic fatigue syndrome. There is no ‘going back to normal’ then.
Who would want to?
Who would want to be part of a population that sees so many people as a burden? Sees people only for their worth in monetary value and productivity in the workforce, then rejects the request to work from home. Tells a population of people to be grateful that they were offered jobs bagging groceries for under minimum wage.
From my position in this world, being disabled and chronically ill has been a gift in a lot of ways. I am not heavily burdened with having to work 40 or more hours a week like most people. None of you seem happy. None of you seem to have the time to do anything you want to be doing. I do. I may not always have the energy, but my time is my own. I have not sold it to a corporation in exchange for a false dream.
I work from home when I can. I am exhausted and in pain more days than I would like (every day). I am not a burden. I have been in a relationship for a year. We don’t live together. I am not a burden. I cook almost all the meals, clean my own home, garden, take care of beehives, and a greenhouse with my family. I am not a burden. Being in a relationship means both people help each other. It means being on a team. Relationships are not independent work. This is true disabled or not. Some days one or both people are going to be having a hard time. So, you help out. This is not being a burden. This is being in a relationship.
No one is getting out of this world alive and almost everyone is leaving because of a disabling condition.
My name is Katherine Elizabeth Walsh. On June 9, 2020, New York Times columnist, Kwame Anthony Appiah, labeled me a burden and unworthy of love.
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Previously published on medium
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