There is a vision of myself that exists in my head. Sometimes it feels like a secret. So often talk of taking up space, not trying to hide my disability, being proud and creative, and those things are true. I believe them, and I don't hide. But occasionally, I am a person who can make herself small in my head. I can slip between narrow aisles in an antique store, crouch on the floor of a record shop and find some gem covered in dust, tiptoe barefoot between rows of herbs in a garden. 

I don't have to get anxious wondering whether I'm taking too much space. Sometimes, in my head, I grieve for the person whose life I don't get to try. For the person who doesn't have the option of making herself small. Sometimes I want it so badly, to explore the places I can't fit, go unnoticed down a street, that the grief sits on my chest like rocks. Who knows who I might or could have been had I not been born this way. I don't write this to make you lamentable, or worse, to elicit pity. I write this because it's my reality with a disability.

I can be proud and grieving. Happy and grieving. Grateful and grieving. Boisterous and grieving. Alive and grieving. Sometimes, even on a beautiful day, an afternoon spent with my favorite person, walking on the beach, yes, even on a day like that, I grieve a little. The good days, though they are wonderful, they are still challenging. Sometimes, I imagine what it would be like not to be disabled. It doesn't make you a "bad" person to wish it was different, to wish for a life without constant barriers and the need to be resourceful. I love my body, count my many blessings, and love my life. I am not ashamed of my disability or who I am, but sometimes, I want to try things to be a little easier, even if it's only in my head...

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