It’s an epiphany when you realize for the first time that the white stick-figure on a disability parking sign is you. That’s you. Now you may park in this fat sirloin of a spot. Now you are “the disabled.”
This leap to disabledhood is as much a mental process as a physical one. And I fought the knowledge, down the line, tooth and nail. I always do, with every new adaptation or assistive device, fight, fight, fight. It sounds courageous, but it’s really it's ridiculous. I have a very thick head.
I can’t remember the moment I resolved to pick up the disability parking permit application. It must have been some watershed event, perhaps my 3,000th fall, the one that rattles your very teeth. Falling itself was no big deal, and I might do it a dozen times in a day. After a while, my body looked like Keith Richards’ after a bender, but big deal, you dust yourself off and get back in the game. But maybe that 3,000th time was the one to slosh my brain in its comfy bath of cerebrospinal fluid: Wake up, you green-gray piece of fat!
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