Sans Wall

Yesterday morning, buck naked in my bathroom, I attempted to do an exercise that I had been shown the day before by a work colleague. It involved balance. I’m not good at balance.

But she had made it look easy, forget the fact that she’s been doing it for a year, and I wanted to try.

I’m a wall walker which means I can walk a short distance without falling if I have a wall to touch to help orient myself in space. This has something that hasn’t changed no matter how much exercise I do, it just is. But in my head, naked in the bathroom yesterday morning, I thought I’d give it a try sans wall.

Mistake.

I would like to say I managed it for a few seconds but it was immediate catastrophe.

There wasn’t enough time for me to save myself or brace myself.

I crashed into the bathroom counter leaving a first welt then bruise.

And it really. Really. Hurt.

In talking to my coworker she was all apologetic and I stopped her and said, “I’d rather have tried and been bruised than not tried and not know.”

I feel like that about life a lot.

Particularly life as a disabled person. Limitations suggested by others are often very much lowered and I have had, and I know a lot of disabled people who have had, to fight to try, fight for the right to fail, fight for the possibility of succeeding.

It could have been that I didn’t fall.

I did.

I know that now, no wondering.

Except if maybe one more time …