Minnesota Public Radio has an interview with Emily Rapp, whose book Poster Child details her life with a congenital disability. In the interview, Rapp says, “I had to be super-normal to be accepted as normal.” I can so relate. While I was naturally inclined to like school when I was a kid, I was also motivated to do well so that I could go to college, get a job, and do all the “normal” things that were expected of my peers. By doing all those things, I thought I could minimize my disability in the eyes of others and not be thought of as different or unusual. I came to the slow realization that I couldn’t spend my whole life trying to pass as some personification of American male normalcy, but I’m probably still dealing with the remnants of that way of thinking.
The more I read you, the more I see that so-called “disabled” people can be extremely gifted, and that it’s a fault to judge anybody or anything “that nature has made”.
Nature (or could we still call it God??)seems to create some form of equilibrism everywhere. As in the way you are able to explore the world in language, instead of stepping physically. You may be much happier than the average man or woman.
Sorry for my English, I am a Belgian.