Somatic entanglements of unseen illness
How do I still 'Move into Motion' with my physical adapted activities business when some days I can no longer move? How do I find way to live in the here and now to make better use of the time I have? How do I not feel sorry for myself when I have waited a life time for the freedom that is about to ascend on me when freedom of movement is no longer mine? How do I accept in a humble way that what I have left to work with may no longer be quite enough? Not just the signs of the ageing body that is mine now but the unexpected and unseen illnesses I struggle to live with. Illnesses that I have largely been able to hide behind that smiling face that is not really mine.
It's the end of another academic year. I've done sixty of them in all and measured time from September to July rather than January to December. August has always belonged to the free spirit in me. This year will be different. There will be no anxiety to wave over me on the last weekend of August before the cycle begins again. No last minute dash to the seaside to take one more dip in the sea before a new school year commences.
Time to leave school behind me in all it's life forms. Now I am free. Free from what became the shackles of a system that I have lived in for most of my life. A system that until the last couple of years I fully believed in and felt I belonged. A system that I thought I could work from within to make education fully inclusive to everyone. A promised made in early life to support the physically disabled community I was brought up in. A promise made to carry on the work of two committed parents who wanted their disabled ave the same advantages as his siblings. One of living in the real world rather than one of segregation and protection from the harsh realities that life of being different might bring.
There's nothing brave about me at this age, an age where being ill is par for the course for many but there was about a child who struggled from the first breath of life. How do what are left of my dreams compare to his? Is 65 too late to start living life in a different way that's free from the past and not always looking to the future. Will I be able to live every day as it comes with a real smile of joy rather than the mask I've always worn? Has it taken so much illness to get me where I could have always been?
Putting one foot in front of the other when walking's too much. Screaming in silence to protect others from my pain. Blaming the physical on the psychological as an easier option when in reality their entanglement is too deep to separate. Now I am turning to stone is it too late to start over? Change my ways even?
