I started this blog with the intentions of being as personal and open as possible. I believe this next blog is the most personal story I have shared yet...
So most who know me would say that I am a pretty strong individual (which I don't think I am necessarily stronger than anyone else) and not going to let anything stop me from living my life. Which is mostly true. I have built a life that works for me, a life I can really enjoy. But there are still moments that are intimidating. Like leaving my house and going somewhere alone. This is something I NEVER do. It is only when I am going somewhere that I am extremely familiar with (like starbucks). Other than that I pretty much always have someone with me because I usually fear the worst of falling out of my chair or being attacked in the parking lot or some other horrific thing I can dream up or running into someone who was apart of the accident. Not to mention the world is not a wheelchair friendly world. Not just buildings aren't always accessible but often I find people are extremely rude. Plus I get extremely panicky when I feel like I am going to be faced with a situation that may not be accessible because that just brings up all kinds of frustration and sad feelings that I try to avoid letting out in public (the general public think disabled people are crazy enough I don't need to reinforce that with a public melt down). So I feel like I always need a someone to reach that high shelf, carry my bags, or just make me feel safe.
Here is another story to let all the readers into my life a little more....
I have two girls from where I went to therapy that I have become really good friends with and we try to get lunch together at least once a month. We all live at least an hour away from each other (one even lives in another country) so we try to pick a location that is centrally located between us all. So this past Friday we decided to go to a restaurant in downtown Detroit. I know what everyone is thinking, there are some nice/safe parts of Detroit. Usually a trip like this I would bring my mom but I am 23 and sometimes I just don't want my mommy tagging along because I feel like a child when she has to come to a lunch that I should be able to do myself. Not that I don't love having my mom around there are just times I want to be independent. Friday was one of those days. I plugged the address of the restaurant in and off I went. Slightly nervous because I had never been to this restaurant before and unknown locations scare me. I never know how accessible they are but one of the other girls had been there and since she is in a chair I figured it had to be good otherwise she wouldn't have suggested it. Once I was a few minutes away from the place my other friend called and said she was having a hard time finding parking and asked if i knew where to park. Well that was a no on my part and that this made me very nervous because I can't just park anywhere and hop out of my vehicle. I need space for the ramp and no one to park next time me (which no one pays attention to leave me enough room). So after my GPS takes me on a cute tour of a bad neighborhood I get the restaurant and just like any other city there is no parking lot next to the restaurant. I begin to drive around fighting lunch time traffic and find a parking garage to park in. I wasn't too sure how close I was to the restaurant because driving distance and wheeling distance are two very different things. But I was just going to to have suck it up. I also didn't have any cash on me so I had to find some at some point too. I start driving around the garage and it was freaking packed. I didn't think that many people went to or worked downtown Detroit. As I am driving up the flights of parking garage I was thinking "I hope they have an elevator" "I hope I can find the restaurant" "I hope no one attacks me" "Sure hope I can find my van after". I could feel myself stressing out a bit. Okay I will be honest I was totally stressing out and really worried that I wouldn't be able to get out of the garage. I found a parking space next to an elevator, wheeled around in a direction I thought was right. Which it turned out to be the right way but the sidewalks sucked. But really sidewalks are hardly ever easy. Cracks and bumps, even the smallest of ones, I have to watch carefully because my front castors can get caught on them and I will eject out of my chair face first. Finally found the restaurant. We had a wonderful lunch at Texas de Brazil, which is delicious and I highly recommend it to everyone but go during lunch time it is expensive for dinner. I had to use an ATM to get money from and back to the parking garage I went. Less nervous this time but still a little bit worried that a raper would be there waiting for me (my mind can be a bit dramatic sometimes). There was no one waiting for me and I was able to leave just fine.
In all I was proud of myself for successfully navigating my way around without help. But I will say that I will still always have someone with me. I enjoy doing things by myself from time to time but it is way to nerve wrecking/scary to do it alone all the time. Plus if I am getting anything more than a lap full of items I need help carrying it.
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