Maybe If We Don't Look At It, It Won't Exist?
It is my belief that a supportive family is the greatest privilege someone can have. While mine never lacked in love, my folks have always struggled with chaos - orderly people who don't like things to be out of place and would rather deny what can't be fixed than to look at it.
It's interesting how it works for people with disabilities, we usually come from abled families who had no clue their kid would turn out to be so completely different from what they expected, and the randomness of this sometimes becomes the fight of a life time. I've always felt like I was different in the wrong way, and I had a very clear point of reference to compare myself to: my beautiful, perfect sister, the one who'd get married, have kids, have it all.
All of these little, subtle “oh I didn’t mean it that way”s have been shaping my mindset since my birth, and I hope that by sharing this here I can be forgiven in my flaw of not having an uplifting story to tell. It would be just beautiful if there was a sudden plot twist, but I’m afraid my folks had it all figured out: messes belong in the closet, locked away from the sight of perfect, innocent people.
