Never Walked In High Heels

At what age can you disagree with people who used to be your elders?

During a recent conversation, I had to listen to a former tutor of mine essentially tell me how to run my life. He hadn’t seen me in three years and the difference between a 22 year old and a 25 year old is often striking- or at least I hope it is. Every argument he made, I knew as according to my own life, that factually he was wrong, but he didn’t want to hear about my successes. He only heard in his mind that I was a failure and needed to get out of the situation that I was currently in. Eventually, I intended to hang up on him, but decided this would be disrespectful. He was after all, a great mentor of mine and had helped create me as the woman I was—even though currently, that woman was highly irritated.

The problem with correcting your elders is that to them you’ll always be young. You’ll always be in need of their advice and mentorship, and they will always –numerically at least- have more life experience than you. As a kid I was constantly reminded to be respectful of my elders. Phrases such as “Don’t talk to him in that tone young lady” or “He’s done a lot for you. You might want to show a little gratitude once in a while,” continue to haunt me when I want to speak out against bad advice. So more often than not, even though I’m opinionated, I keep my mouth shut and try to let my superior come to his own conclusions.

But any relationship across generations, be it parent to child or student to teacher, changes as the younger individual grows up. It has to. If the adult doesn’t let the relationship change, it will be forever damaged, and if the younger doesn’t force the relationship to change he will be forever coddled by his mentor. Growing up across an intergenerational relationship can prove to be extremely difficult and damaging to both parties, but it has to be done. The switch between a vertical relationship (for example, teacher and child) to a horizontal relationship (such as peers) has to make that switch in order to still function.

But at some point during that switch from vertical to horizontal, you realize as you grow up that no adult has all the answers. In fact, many of them have just a few more than even you do. People make up their lives as they go, and that’s okay as long as they give you the freedom to do likewise. That moment where you realize that nobody knows everything, can be a combination of one of the most frightening but also liberating moments you will ever face. At that point, the world is truly yours, and we, regardless of age are all equal and trying to get by.

Older generations will always try to warn you against their mistakes, which is good, as well as fruitful because your mistakes should always be your own and if that means repeating the exact same ones that your parents created, at least make sure that you put your own special stamp of dysfunction on it. Don’t let people use you to fix their own past. What that is, is what I call a recycled life. People who didn’t succeed at living their lives for themselves that first time, and so they will try and make you live their lives now. And sometimes you may even have a revelation before one of your elders does, and that’s okay. If they are honest with themselves and with you, they will admit that they are still learning to grow up as well.

Everybody knows about the American church in the UK. The second I mention a concept like the separation between church and state, my entire class rolls their eyes. They don’t believe there is such a thing. The irony is of course that the Founding Fathers left the Old World in hopes that there could be a place in the new world where government and religion never mixed. Clearly, that place is not America.

The American Church prefers to throw up its hands and say we’re not responsible for where modern government takes us. How could we ever hope to accomplish our goals with this sort of distrust? The truth is, I think that the American Church, despite its own opinion(s) of itself will prove to be under as much judgment as any other institution, should we ever be fortunate enough to meet the face of God someday. The following is a list of three simple shortcomings, or to use more dramatic language “sins” that the American church will have to answer for someday.

Number 1: A lack of access- The story about Jesus healing the paralytic after he was lowered down through a hole in the roof has particular significance to any church. Despite commercials saying that in churches, sitting congregations have their door “open to all,” a shocking number of churches have no physical access for those of us with disabilities. Many of them hide behind the idea that their building has “historical significance” and therefore is so old that they cannot be made accessible; this of course, given my physical disability, angers me to no end. It’s not even that the building itself is inaccessible, which does irritate me, but the fact that God’s house is suddenly not open to all. Many buildings all over the world are inaccessible to those of us with physical limitations. But if the church is reflective of God’s love and is supposed to be a model of morality, how can they ever justify their existence when they refuse to build a simple ramp to get into their sanctuary?

Number 2: Lack of Compassion- There is a genuine sentiment that suggests that all sinners who have not come to God are somehow inhuman and thus unworthy of value. The way that the American Church has handled the issue of homosexuality is appalling. Forgetting that Christ died for us while we were yet sinners, they then expect non-believers to uphold the morality, which we are only given when we willingly accept and follow Christ. To expect anyone to act like a Christian before he knows the face of God is like expecting a slave to behave as a free man while his ankles are still in shackles. There is an unreasonable expectation that people—all sinners—should be able to clean themselves up for the sake of not being repulsive when they first set foot in church. Thus, whenever people of certain lifestyles first try to come to God, God’s own people shun them.

Number 3: A Lack of Initiative- Here is the church’s biggest fault. Routinely we expect the government to behave like the Church and solve issues that should be of heart and mind with the law. The aforementioned debate on homosexuality is a prime example as are other issues such as the legality of marriage and abortion. The American Church has somehow fooled itself into believing that it is Washington’s role to make laws according to what is moral or immoral, rather than the church attempting to impact lives on a personal level. The influence of day-to-day morality through a higher government surely will never sit well with God. As Christ said, “Pay to Caesar what is Caesar’s” So too did he understand the difference between church and state. The two would never be a substitute for each other. Why then have we fooled ourselves into thinking otherwise?

I don’t know where this idea of the Founding Fathers ever being “Christian” came from, but their Christianity was certainly not of the same ilk as ours is today. If you look at the Constitution it is not a moral document, it is not the Ten Commandments, and it leaves individuals the freedom to behave (both socially and privately) as they wish. The American Church seems to have forgotten that we are a nation made from people who believed that there is a God, a God who gives us the freedom to behave as we wish, in conjunction with those Constitutional liberties. In assuming that America is a Christian nation, the Church has given up its own powers to understand morality, and act compassionately towards others with the hope that the government will take care of it all for them, and in this way the church has aimed for government dependency as much as the America population has.

“We are a Christian nation. We were formed as a Christian nation, and a Christian nation is what we shall claim to be. People forget that.” She was getting more frustrated in her debate. The quilt on the wall and the dried flowers were the quintessential marks of a country home. She lived in typical Middle America. Good, God-fearing, hardworking stock, who believed that all the founding fathers were men of God.

I didn’t say anything at first, but I thought back to my 11^th grade US History class and seemed to remember an early lecture brought on by an older teacher—no they weren’t all Christians I thought to myself. At least not in the way we think of when we say they were. Weren’t they deists? The longer I thought about it the more I agreed with my assumption. I finally went home to look it up on Wikipedia when my mother asked me to check my facts after breaking into the argument and making such a claim. I was right, most of them were indeed deists. I’m always envious of deists simply because I’m not one. In fact I’m the dead opposite. Reason and rationale is tempting to me though, as are many of the deist doctrines, but there are so many things I cannot agree on. Deism is best described as this: God is like a clockmaker, he put all the parts in place and let it unwind itself. It’s a kind of hands-off deity where God created the world and then sat back to watch—like he created the world for his entertainment—a substitute TV show. With this in mind, God doesn’t rule over every aspect of our lives. The ultimate anti-predestination argument, man makes his own destiny and every choice he makes is one that he is directly responsible for. Born out of the Enlightenment, this view of God is highly allowing of individualism, reason, and rationality.

Now bring that philosophy to the men who wrote our Constitution. It gives you a whole new perspective on that document doesn’t it? If you read it, all of it, you can see that that single piece of paper was meticulously written, word-by-word to allow a great amount of flexibility in interpretation. It was almost like the Founding Fathers felt the government should mimic their view of God—hands-off, let the country and people unwind how they will. There goal was to protect people’s rights and afford everyone civility.

We were not founded in the modern Christian ideals. America was truly a great experiment and nobody knew how it would turn out. In writing the Constitution, maybe nobody wanted to be responsible for the mistakes of the future. Write the document and see where the country goes. Sounds like a pretty radical idea even if it was based on the Enlightenment and reason. To afford people the greatest freedom and to make them responsible for everything they do, doesn’t agree with much of the modern interpretations of Christianity. It’s radical really, almost humanistic, and forces us to be the drivers of our own fate. The truth is, I’m unsure if any of the Founding Fathers knew what to envision when they drafted that document. Who in recent history had ever successfully tried to make a country? Any man would be panicked in such a situation, and I can’t help but wonder, did they even think America would last this long?

Current events are making people say America is going down hill or America is finally coming into it’s own—depending on who you ask. Looking at the Constitution, I can say that considering what the Founding Fathers envisioned, America has great flexibility to create whatever type nation it wants.

I’m an opinionated woman. I don’t mean to be going for the understatement of the year here or anything, but the fact is I spend a lot of time thinking and even forming my own conclusions. Public transportation is particularly good for this exercise as it allows me to observe, think and refine whenever there is little else to do.

So I was really surprised when during a conversation with a close friend I said, “I actually don’t care” in the middle of the debate. I try to think of everything in my spare time, but when he asked me about a major ethical issue, I just couldn’t be bothered. It wasn’t that I couldn’t come up with an opinion if I thought hard enough—of course I could—I just wasn’t sure that it was worth my effort.

I have a friend who doesn’t know the first thing about politics, several of them actually. Oddly enough, most of them are human aid workers—reviving people who are dying, rescuing people from floods or avalanches, going in where the rest of us barely dare to pray. I don’t consider myself as the same classification as those friends, but it’s interesting. Outside of naming our new President (and possibly our Vice President) they are completely lost in a political conversation. Ask them about some act in Russia, which turn orphans out of orphanages at 15 and they can tell you exactly who passed it, when, and why, as well as subsequent acts which resulted thereof.

I think the reason why they don’t follow politics is that my friends are too busy fixing things that the politicians in armchairs talk about changing as they smoke on cigars and go out to fancy dinners. The human service acts, which my friends undertake are the equivalent of feeding prisoners of war while the rest of us are talking about strategy. We like to believe in America that our vote is actively changing something, but the truth is that it isn’t. It’s like how some people believe that paying taxes is actually charity—there’s nothing charitable about voting. It’s not some humanitarian act. Humanitarian acts don’t come from a government legislator, they come from actively getting up out of your house and encountering the world face to face, which means not being home to watch the cable news shows, and in this way, my friends being clueless about politics isn’t really an issue.

Not everyone can move the middle of Siberia in order to make the world a better place. I realize that of course, and so it is up to those of us who do have time to follow politics and care about it, to ensure that the America my friends come home to when they need a break from saving the world, it is a country they can be proud of & in. This is the place of voting and taxes. It is not however, human aid work.

After this conversation, I put myself to a challenge. If I don’t have an opinion on something, I don’t give one, that’s okay too. My friends and I are passionate people—wanting to see the world change in a huge variety of ways. However, when you care deeply about many things you cannot afford the energy to superficially care about what everyone else thinks of as being important. In my mind some issues are more important than others, and the issues I don’t think are important need to be left to someone who is passionate about those issues because in the end, who knows if there’s anyone else passionate about mine.

So I’m at a bar in London. It’s one of those weird meetings where it might be considered a first date or it might be just a friend get together. I’m watching for signs very carefully. We sit down. We order. Then he immediately rips into my country, starts shredding issues of the day, utterly destroying certain individuals, and I disagree with him 100%. Within exactly 7 minutes of taking our seats he is permanently off my list of potential partners.

It’s a massive open female pitfall that women everywhere are facing—well, women with open minds. The problem is not that he disagrees with my opinions; my best friends and I disagree all the time—that keeps the relationship interesting. No, the problem is that I have now sat here for some time and he doesn’t even ask my opinion. He just assumes that I agree with him, and with that given, he can make the boldest, most blatant statements without any encouragement from me.

It’s now 20 minutes and I think I’ve spoken a total of 15 seconds. This is not a good way to start an evening, let alone a potential romantic relationship.

Here’s something that guys need to understand. Perhaps it is only this way in my little mind, but it is important nonetheless. When you offer to go out on a date with me, you have centuries full of chauvinist pigs dragging your tail backwards. I just think of all the women over the centuries and generations who got married only to discover that her opinion didn’t matter to their spouses. The polite disagreements eventually turned to sirens when she learned after 15 or 20 years that what she thought didn’t matter. I’m not saying that every long-term relationship ends up like this, but several of them did and still do, and I don’t want to fall victim to that. So I am going to watch you on first dates, and on subsequent outings to see if you do care about my opinion and if you can tolerate disagreements. I know that in any long-term relationship people change, but each person must feel like they married the better individual. Without even asking if I have an opinion, you’ve proven to me that I don’t matter.

Sadly, I think it’s becoming more and more common on the dating field. Especially with the political expectations being what they are, everyone suddenly has an opinion, and the dinner table has become and appropriate place to spout it out. Maybe it’s because I’m often slow to speak, but in the past 2 months I’ve ruled out 5 guys that I could have liked because they never asked me what I thought. Are you interested in yourself or me? I can handle disagreement—that actually means more to me than you agreeing with me all the time. I can’t be comfortable though, in a relationship where there needs to be 100% assumed agreement—where I’m always walking on eggshells, and where I’m not free to be myself. I actually feel more paralyzed when I regularly agree with you than I do when we go our separate ways and can each then turn to the other at the end of the evening and say, you’re nuts but I love you for it.

The evening admittedly lasted longer than I should have let it. He is a good friend, and I wanted to catch up with his life, not on the British opinion of Washington politics. I kept the conversation going hoping to get the former, but all I got was the latter. At the end of the night, we pushed in our chairs and agreed to meet with a group of friends in the following week. He is a great companion, followed by dear inspiration and creative spirit, when he isn’t spouting off politically, and I keep him around for those qualities. Not because I agree with him, or he agrees with me. All I could tell is that for a long-term romantic relationship, this wasn’t going to work. As we came to the door we noted that it was raining outside. He offered me his coat, and I told him “No thank you, I always carry and umbrella in my handbag.”

I once went out with a guy who claimed I had luck. Not good luck, or bad luck, just luck in general. I was born with a disability that affects 1 person in 400—this was how I started life. If there is a slight, slight risk of a medication having some weird side effect, I will get it. If there is slight, slight risk of a great success, somehow I will find it. My luck if you will, seems to go from one extreme to the other. So much so that I worry about getting fortuitous whip lash and then wonder if while in the emergency room I would have good luck or bad luck resulting in malpractice and having my head amputated.

I didn’t used to believe in luck at all, even after my friend mentioned that I had luck. After all, as a Christian I believe that things happen for reasons, or at least I used to believe that. Now, I’m seriously beginning to wonder…

While having dinner with friends at a restaurant, which I will currently leave nameless, I excused myself and went into the disabled toilet. In the UK accessible loos are completely separate rooms from the men’s room or the ladies room, and my date was courteous enough to wait outside the accessible toilet for me. While washing my hands, I heard a hugely loud crash, which in turn made me jump and forced me to fall over into a puddle of water. When I finally turned around to see what had made the crash I realized that the toilet had fallen completely off the wall. Having just gotten up off of the thing, I’m still deeply disturbed by the incident several days later. Water was not gushing out of the hole in the wall as if a fire hydrant had been opened. My trousers, my everything was soaked, and my friend outside yelled to make sure I was okay and asked what happened. When he asked me this question I literally had no words to explain what had taken place. I did the simplest thing I knew to do. I unlocked the door in order to show him the scene of the disaster.

There’s something about when you “beat the odds” which takes a second to register. Visiting my parents in Vegas, there’s always that second when money starts pouring out of a slot machine and leaves a gambler stupefied and wondering if the world is going to collapse around them. It reminds me of the philosophy of Immanuel Kant who explains that you cannot know a thing in itself and that’s the way you can’t know all the possibilities of life. There’s just too many beyond our imagination, like is said in Hamlet, “There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” In the unexpected things falling out of the sky, are often the to challenge us in our tiny little lives we’ve securely sought out for ourselves.

It seems like from the point of view of a disabled woman, I’ve lived my life beating the odds in one form or another and sometime depending on miracles. I’ve since learned that trying to plan ahead for all possible things that can go wrong, as a roommate once suggested me to do, is impossible because how can you foresee a toilet falling off of a wall when you just got off of it. Even the most unexpected things will happen. Sometimes in our favor and sometimes not, and there’s always that moment of stupidity where it seems that the sky is literally falling and there’s no logical explanation for anything. At that point you can either believe in luck or something else. Either way, you cannot escape reality.

Hey friend. It is a rare occurrence that I get tongue-tied, but I managed to do so while making a speech at your reception dinner last week. Anyway, I’ve been thinking about it, and here’s what I wanted to say even though it may have never been clear in the first place.

“Christie has always been my last line of defense. I need a lot of help in life and Christie, along with a handful of others, many of whom are in this room, act as my plan Z. When nothing else works, I call in Christie and the rest of these people to make life bearable again. One thing that bonds Christie and me particularly, is her amazing ability to type. I think it actually came from her having a crush on a boy in high school and insisting that she use AIM nightly to talk to him. Well God works in mysterious ways. The fact is that I can only type about 6 words a minute, so whenever I procrastinated too long on a paper or was overwhelmed with work, Christie would always come by and help my type. Looking back, I don’t think I could have made it through college without her assistance.

The thing is, she and I have a relationship that is based on typing in very strange places. The first time she came to type for me, I was working as a technician backstage at the Davidson Dance Ensemble running the fly rail and completing a history paper at the last minute. She has typed for me in a lighting booth, in a shower stall, lying on my bathroom floor, in Scotland, in Spain, in a car and even when I was in transit between two major continents and could only contact her via Skype.

This morning, we were getting ready for her big day, and with all the rushing around, I found myself plopped on the coach desperately trying to get work done and finish an e-mail, which needed to be sent out within the next hour. Christie and her bridesmaids were working on putting together Christie’s bouquet when all of a sudden I felt my friend come up next to me, “Move over.”

“What?”

“I said, move over!”

“Excuse me?”

“I’ve got five minutes before I need to do my hair and put my dress on. Move over. Let me help you type.” It kind of goes against the preconceived notion of what a bride should be like the day before here wedding—to see your best friend meet your needs instead of hers, and act as a assistant while holding a bouquet of pink roses and pearls.

Andrew, I want to say this is an incredible woman you are marrying and I am excited that you got her. I am also excited to get to know you more. Christie, my last line of defense when it absolutely, positively, must be done over night. So Andrew given that you have been kicked out, deported, and barred from Russia, it gives me new confidence in my omega team. All I have to ask is how fast can you type?

I love you both and wish that you may both manage to see God daily throughout your marriage. With love.

There are certain everyday things in life that, due to my disability, may as well be from a different planet. Last summer, I managed to drive my friends insane when I became obsessed with shifting water inside a half-filled bottle back and forth. The weight counterbalancing in my hand felt like a small wrist massage. At times I find that I see or feel something like I’ve never felt it before, like insisting that playing with shaving cream is a good idea, or eating cookie dough with one’s own hands is the proper way to do it.

On this particular occasion, I was moving into my first apartment. My mom, my roommate Amy and myself, had just bought a kitchen in a box from Target. While washing all the different pieces and trying to learn what exactly they did, our friend Maria dropped by to welcome us into our new home. She was seven months pregnant. She offered to help Amy, my mother, and myself (who combined probably had enough skill in the kitchen to burn a piece of toast) make heads or tails out of the chaos that was supposed to be turning into the kitchen. Within a few minutes however, her swollen ankles were exhausted as she waddled along to the newly unwrapped couch, and put her feet up. She watched us and gave her own opinion as she saw fit.

The conversation continued for a few minutes and then Maria let out a gasp and began to push on her ribcage. “Gosh darn it! Darn little terror always gets stuck right up there!” She began to push at her side a little more as if trying to pop some sort of bubble.

“Oh I know exactly what you mean, this one…” my mother said pointing at me, “used to always get her hand caught on my left ribcage. I swore that I was gonna make you feel the same misery when you came out.”

“You mean you can actually…like… feel the details of a baby inside you?” I asked, genuinely curious. “I had just always thought a baby was this sort of blob of life that you knew was there, but you couldn’t get your head around any of the specifics. Kind of like having a light in your belly.” This was my very high-tech definition of what having a small human being inside your uterus must feel like.

“Blob of life?! What the heck does that mean?” At this point I reiterated my own history of never having babysat and being quite proud of that fact, so I had an excuse for my ignorance.

“Have you ever felt a baby kicking?” Maria asked me while rubbing her stomach. I replied that I hadn’t and then timidly asked her if I could feel her belly. She nodded and I walked forward kneeling beside the couch and gently put my hand on her stomach. She took my hand and pressed it even firmer against her gut. Nothing happened. She began to talk quietly as if talking to newborn Tara herself, even though she had yet to meet the baby. In this voice she explained to me that while she, the mother, was walking around, Tara was more likely to fall asleep, but when she was lying down and still like this, that’s when Tara woke up. At least, that’s usually how it works. I waited five minutes gingerly cupping my palm against her stomach, and holding my breath—hoping to feel the tiniest bump that may or may not have been imagined.

And then I felt an electrical shock going through her stomach.

My hand flew backwards and I stood up, “What in the world?!” I began. I couldn’t see my mother behind the counter anymore because she was doubled up from laughter. Maria smiled and asked, “Did you feel it?” mocking me and my shock. “Yes I felt it! I had no idea it was going to be that big! That’s ridiculous! I always thought that when mothers talked about babies kicking it was all in their heads. How do you sleep with that?” Ten thousand questions gushed out at once. My mother and Amy still had not recovered.

Turns out, you adjust to having a human being growing inside you. You supposedly even begin to love it after a while. As a single woman loving my ability to be spontaneous, I can’t imagine it, at least not right now. Looking back, I’m certain that Maria couldn’t imagine motherhood in its fullness, just as only four years before, she was the one trying to pull out a full kitchen from a single box. Each new phase of life that comes seems to have been packaged without an instruction manual and it’s up to us to figure out what goes where and what’s missing. Whether it’s the final year of college or a new baby, a new life is always coming down the pipeline and no matter how organized we are, we’re rarely “ready.”

I’ve become quite adept at unpacking a kitchen in a box having done it in three different countries in the last four years. Every time I buy one, regardless of what country I’m in, they all seem to have a pizza pan and be missing something you actually need, such as a can opener. But having mastered one phase of life, there always seems to be another one just around the corner. And the little things which I never really thought about or simply never experienced, can be mundane to most people but they can still shatter my worldview. Something as small as a baby kicking always serves to remind me that after 25 years, I am still woefully inexperienced in life.

It’s Armistice Day again. It is the time when we all wear red poppies for remembrance and flower sellers on the street corner are doing a respectful duty. The scarlet plastic flowers contrasting against our dark coats are a bold statement for the good that men are capable of in the bleakest times. And these men, wars, and efforts, are worth being revered as well as remembered because these are the people who knew that sometimes a war is worth fighting, in order to protect human dignity.

Sadly, we as a society seem unable to offer these people the same respect in peace time as they did on the battlefield. Indeed, it is a known fact that with war comes wounds, and with those often comes permanent disability. What is often forgotten is that even today, with the onset of disability, basic human rights and dignities are habitually forgotten, looked over, or ignored. It suddenly becomes socially acceptable for a taxi to blow past a man in a wheelchair because the driver cannot be bothered to put the ramp down. Store clerks refuse to acknowledge someone with inarticulate speech because it is easier to talk to her companion. And a family stops trying to bathe the last living man from the World War II generation because his missing limb combined with his age related conditions makes showering extremely difficult.

Veterans are the people who were willing to risk life and limb to protect our safety and way of life at home. What they did not realize they were risking, was what is taken away as a person with any disability… their dignity.

With disability rights legislation several years old, it would be easy to assume that such discrimination and humiliation no longer exists or, at the very least, is on its way out. But in fact, the issue is a civil rights battle with extremely uncharted waters. The Disability Rights Commission recently revealed that a shocking number of organizations failed to give a disability equality scheme on the required date. Research shows that over forty percent of disabled people are deemed “economically inactive.” Despite all possible legislation, the barriers which were an issue for disabled people fifteen years ago have not been erased but rather transformed. And for the man who gave up his pristine spine because he believed an ideal was worth that risk to protect that notion, why can’t the country he was willing to enlist for now see him as a man who is as deserving to be able to get into any building as he is.

If this sounds absurd then there is only one word I can say in response… good. It is absurd that anyone is one faulty stoplight away from becoming a second-class citizen. Moreover, the fact that our culture emphasizes perfection and convenience symbolizes our refusal to acknowledge the frailty of the entire human condition. If the Armed Forces can see this need for the protection of humanity, why is it those at home refuse to recognize the same need for dignity for injured vets.

As a disabled woman, I recognize that laws and legislation have their place in forcing social change. But, it is people who make the laws, and it is people who make changes, or impede them. All of the laws and constitutions amount to good intentions on the part of lawmaker, but the conditions for disabled persons remain unchanged in daily life. And such changes will not be until changes in perception occur at an individual level. It is indeed inappropriate for anyone to excuse his ignorant behavior by explaining “I have yet to receive training on how to deal with disabled people.” Moreover, it is wrong. To use such a feeble defense is to ultimately give permission to someone else to treat you in the same manner when you are old and have unsure footing. More than any other civil rights battle, this issue is the one where, given time, you are sure to reap the seeds you sow.

Of course it is not only veterans who are entitled to these rights, but for them the common condition of the disabled person should strike you as the most shameful. These men and women became disabled by protecting you, your way of life and your home, because they thought your freedoms were worth pain, fear, and even a lifetime of inconvenience. Why can we not take the same challenge on our local high streets? What should be our selfless heroes are currently force to drink from the pungent cup of dependency feeling unwelcome, foreign, and a burden. They have been forced into the position, like all disabled people, of a refugee with no homeland even among the nation they fought to protect.

My last article on health care entitled, “Why this Health Care Thing Scares Me” attracted such a visceral response from some of you that I realized that it was quite the hot-button topic. Doubting the validity and moral stability of a national healthcare system, suddenly seemed like insulting apple pie, the American flag, and little baby bunnies. So here we go again…

I’ll start at the beginning. I am a woman with Cerebral Palsy who was put into private therapy at the age of six months. My family was extremely poor at the time and doing so was an incredible sacrifice of time, energy, and money on their part. At the same time I was also placed into therapy provided through the government at a public school when I began my early childhood education at the age of three. Thus, I saw both sides of the picture. The private therapy, which was paid for directly from a pocket book, and the public kind given for free. The difference is striking.

After a therapist at school informed my mother that, “Walking is not a reasonable goal for her” a Kindergarten teacher saw the fallacy of this argument and immediately gave up half of her lunch period to help me learn to walk. When my mother took news of this assessment back to the private therapist, they agreed with the school teacher and the goal of walking was added to my list of well defined goals that would continue to be worked on for the next 16 years. The goals at school were nebulous. Therapists were underpaid and overworked and the quality of therapy never came anywhere near what was available within a private clinic. I have no doubt in my mind that if it wasn’t for the private clinic of Pathways Center for Children, I would not be nearly as able-bodied as I am today. The format of therapy in public school consists of government goals and regulations thought up by some expert in Washington who has probably never seen a disabled child, let alone this one in particular.

What I’m writing here is my own story. I have no doubt that there are some great physical therapists, who work within the public school systems. The ones even I had were sometimes outstanding, but the pressure and paperwork placed on them by a needless bureaucracy made their jobs so much less efficient than they could have been.

But as is typical with any of my personal experiences this one doesn’t fit inside that box. The first abnormality comes from the conservative argument that healthcare is much worse in socialized systems such as is visible in the UK. Every single one of the private therapists I had were trained by people at the Bobath Clinic, which is a resource specializing in providing top therapy for individuals with Cerebral Palsy. This clinic is actually in the south of England and while it is funded in a multitude of different ways, it goes against the statement that, “all UK healthcare offices are rubbish.”

The second thing you must be aware of is that my family could not afford to give me private therapy and so the family who started Pathways Center for Children subsidized a great many therapy sessions for children in similar circumstances including myself. For many years, my therapy cost my family next to nothing and it was through the generosity of the Ryans (the clinics founders), and the blessing of their wealth that I was able to undergo treatment. In a system where everyone is financially equal, no one could afford to have the outstanding treatment I received. Not only the abilities that many doctors claimed were impossibilities but the desire to create enough capital someday to give other children the same opportunities. By eliminating private healthcare, these systems and avenues are cut off and unavailable to those who need it most.

When thinking about politics I am often reminded of a line from Thornton Wilder’s, Our Town. A town official at one point says that we all want the same thing. We want the people who need services to be able to get them, and those who are going to milk the services to be kept away from taking advantage of the system That’s what I want. That’s really what we all want, but we also live in a fallen world where even with healthcare for everyone, not everyone’s needs will be treated. To those who call me extremist and cold-hearted, I would ask this. Does your opinion come from firsthand experience? Have you read my story? Is my experience not as valid as yours, and should my concerns be ignored because they do not fit with your agenda? Answer this truthfully and honestly. Growing up I wasn’t a member of a particular political party (in truth, I’m still not). I was just a kid who knew what she saw and experienced, and refused to forget it.