You Can't Ask That!

Click here Merril and I bought a Rav 4 a while back, and now we see Rav 4’s on the road everywhere.   I think I see a lot of Mirages too but I could be mistaken.  I play and enjoy Table Tennis, and I see more Table Tennis related stuff then I knew was out there.
I have found we tend to see the thing we are giving our attention to.
It is amazing to me that since I have had a mild stroke and my brother had a worse one, how many disabled people are out there.  I was aware of them before, but I feel like I really see them now.   Sure they are not as fast, or as sure footed as some, and they cannot do things we can take for granted, but they have a heap to give as long as we are ready to receive.
In all cases these folk would like their circumstances to be different, and if they could change them, they would.  Unfortunately they are not, and they can’t.  I can so relate to that.  It really is a case of coming to grips with where you are at, and working with it.  This can take a long time.  I thought I was good to go, but people who knew better than me determined otherwise.  It was only later I had to admit they were right. 
My rehab involved seeing a psychologist which I hated doing and was loath to do.  It turned out it was time really well spent.  He said something I think will stay with me forever.  He said women tend to have two careers (home and work) while men tend to only have one (work).  When work is gone what is there?   My grandfather grappled with this and was gone within an instant of retiring, while my dad found heaps of projects and was with us till 97.
I appreciate that people don’t always know how to react or respond, but I find it somewhat amusing and disconcerting that in a three way conversation you can be there and it is as though you are not.  I feel like saying “Hello!! I’m here!!”
All my rehab was to get back to work.  I was asked the process I followed to get to work.  It involved walking, stepping onto the train, more walking and getting on a bus before more walking.  So my rehab involved a lot of walking and stepping and turning my head left and right while walking (I must admit, I saw folk way worse off than me at that time, and it made me very thankful for what I had).
I did all that and work didn’t want me!  Where were they going to find the 14 people to replace me??? (that was my own private joke).  They had a morning tea for me at work during this time and I followed my normal routine to get there.  I was amazed how tired it made me.
Thankfully in a lot of cases, the disability is physical rather than mental (in my case, I have friends who many dispute my disability is only physical).  I told someone today I had had a mild stroke and they said I was almost a normal person.  Fair dinkum I have felt like almost a normal person all my life.
A mental disability is a whole different ball game.
The ABC runs a show called “You can’t ask that!”  In it, people from all walks of life have questions submitted to them and they answer. I remember a girl with a disability was asked “do you people really use a chair in the shower?”  I so admired and so agreed with her answer.  She said “why wouldn’t you?”  The chair I use is like my best friend, and I miss it if it is not there (of course one needs to use the right sort of chair, as the first one I had broke and gave way under me)
I totally understand that people with disabilities are often the last picked.  It is like lining up in front of two people picking teams and being the last picked.  Are you there because you are valued or just to make up the numbers?
They talk about us living in an “inclusive” society.  The last figure I read was that 20% of our society has a disability.  I personally do not see 1 in 5 represented.  20% is a lot higher than I realized.  I think we don’t see them because a lot of them are “hidden away.”  Out of sight and out of mind.  Some of it would be self-inflicted, some can’t get out and about, while some of it would be because we want others to see our society at its “best”.
Often what you see is not what you get.