Excuse me?

Today I have pondered a lot. That's one thing about break that is good for me. It allows me extra time to sit back and reflect on things. My closest friends would tell you that my mind never stops pondering. And what I was pondering today was how others view me with the limp.

This sort of began a few weeks ago, but I hadn't thought much about it until recently. I was in charge of lunch room duty at school this Summer. This was a new thing for me, as I am used to being SUPPORT staff, not someone leading the pack, per se. So, it was on about day #2 of my new "job", and one of the other teachers walked up to me and asked me if I could stand the whole time due to my "disability". I wanted to say "Excuse me? I'm not disabled!" However, it wasn't going to do either of us any good for me to say it, so I kept my mouth shut. (Sidenote, this is why I love the show "House" because he just says what he thinks!) I simply replied, "yeah, I'm fine, thanks for asking."

I'm used to my own little bubble where people know about the limp, they don't mind that I have a limp, and life goes on. Kids are especially cool about it. You explain it to them, they accept it, and life is good.

So then I'm at another function recently, and one of the ladies says, "So I hear you have Cerebral Palsy". I said, "Yep". Then she replied, "So how are you a teacher if you have CP?" I was floored. Literally. I sat there and thought, "What are you rambling about?" I looked at her. She then followed with, "I'm sorry, did I say something wrong?"

I looked at her, and it hit me. She had some really wrong perceptions of me as a person due to the label of CP. As it turned out, she had worked with kids that have CP, but none of them were high-functioning. I don't hold that against her. And, I do give her credit, she asked instead of simply going off of her wrong perceptions. By the way, in the end, I told her my life story and we were cool.

But it made me think.

Really think.

How often have I made the wrong conclusion about others without getting to know them? I mean, once people talk to me and spend time with me, they can clearly see that I'm not very different than they are, I just won't ever have the desire to run in a marathon!

So, maybe I need to watch how I view others too.

And in the meantime, I will continue to wave and smile at people when they stare at my limp.

And continue to show them, I'm different, but not "Disabled"...