Grieving the Future I Could've Had

Disability takes and it takes and it takes. Maybe we don't have to let it.

Dear Lithium,

How do you go about grieving the future I could've had if I wasn't disabled?

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Dear Grieving,

I think the first step for me around difficult topics is always honesty. Honestly it's so painful. Honestly I'm torn apart with jealously. Honestly if I wasn't disabled I'd be such a different person that I'd take all my abilities for granted.

So what is this future that we missed out on? I get a little esoteric with these ones because that's my world view. From a very real perspective you have missed out on nothing. You have your life and you're living on hard mode and that's sorta just it. Like. There is no "alternate timeline" where you're not disabled, and if there is, does it really matter? Because you're rooted firmly in the dirt of here, now. Alternate timeline you is alternate timeline you. This timeline you is this timeline you.

I could have been a world traveler. I could have been a cross country runner. I could have had 8 girlfriends and 4 boyfriends and 6 dogs that were all German Shepherds. But I don't. Instead I wake up and I do my stretches and I take my meds and I try really hard, basically all day, to not lose my balance and face plant into a sharp corner somewhere in my small apartment. This is my future.

This is my future, and within my life and this hard mode existence I find ways to see joy. Some months, some years, that looks like I'm in a very important relationship with my PlayStation. She can sub in for my 8 girlfriends and 4 boyfriends. Other times I find fulfillment in my art, the most important of which I'm too disabled to engage in anymore but honestly that's okay because I refuse to not find other ways. I just absolutely refuse.

And that refusal isn't aggressive. It's not ignorant. It's just exactly what it is: love for life and the desire to make life work for me.

We get taught that if we're not living life in these very specific ways that we're failures. Gotta pull urself up by yer bootstraps. Make always more money than your parents did. Produce. Produce. Produce. Consume. Consume. Consume. Disabled existence is kinda sick cause it puts a wrench in that system, whether we want to do that or not. We get put on the outside of that system, now by default, and so it can feel horrific to not be able to engage in it.

Your own life. This very one. It. Is. More. Valuable. Than. Elon Musk's. Life. You are worth more than Jeff Bezos. Life is so god damn precious. Consciousness doesn't even make any fucking sense we were literally birthed by a pale blue dot floating through space and then we wake up and we have light and sound and smells and tastes and weird wonderful textures and dreams and reality. So, you are this. You are this miracle too. I don't care if there's 8 billion people or whatever, you too are it.

How do we grieve the future we never had? You kick and you scream and you cry and you yell and you complain to anyone who will listen and you love everything so completely that it feels like a thousand losses over and over and over again. And then you take a deep, deep breath. Do it right now.

The future you never had pales in comparison to the reality of the present. It has nothing on your pain. It has nothing on the loss.

Two monks were washing their bowls in a stream when they saw two crows fighting over and plucking out the eyes of a snake. The first monk asked, "why does it always have to be like this?"

To which the second monk, Dongshan, replied "it is only for your benefit, honored one."

With love,

Lithium

P.S. I'm now working in a coach/mentor hybrid role for disabled folks. I am also leading a disabled support group for queer/trans people. You can see more about all that on my website rykener.net -- sign up for the mailing list to get notified about support group meetings rykener.net/newsletter