bald woman

Are You There, God? It’s Me, Chelsea

Posted on by akiwifreund

Judy Blume wrote from the perspective she was most familiar with – her own. It’s what we all do. It’s what makes our stories unique, especially when we look at the story teller as female vs. male, as tall vs. short, as narrow vs. wide, as black vs. white, as wheeled vs. walking.

Something that Judy Blume would have no perspective on is the experience of a girl going through puberty and dealing with questions about her body and her sexuality while also experiencing a physical disability. For instance, would it be so easy to use a tampon if your hands did not have the dexterity and strength that most girls had simply because you had cerebral palsy? It seems unfair that a girl with CP have to advertise to the world that she had to install a brick (aka pad) in her underwear because a tampon was just too damn complicated.

For me, my baldness has flavored many stories. I didn’t choose to lose all my hair. I had absolutely no control on it falling out, and I have no control on it growing back. However, wigs have gotten so good that I can “pass” to the untrained eye. I still get a once- or twice-over.

This woman is hugely disappointed because she has never been catcalled. I’m sure she’s faced many, many types of discrimination, but she is heartbroken because she has never been desired simply for her appearance. She is always going to be liked for her personality, and only after she has been passed over by many, many men. She has never written in her journal that some stranger said something sexual and inappropriate to her, and she told him to fuck off and then ran-walked away.

Right now I only use a cane to help me walk – my walker stays in my closet. But I know a bit about what she feels. I am treated completely different when I’m walking with my cane compared to no cane. I even feel different, more vulnerable without it, because I know that when my feet are slapping together and my face is paralyzed, I’ve lost all desirability.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-establishment/nobody-catcalls-the-woman-in-the-wheelchair_b_9130226.html

 

Seek And Ye Shall Find

Posted on by akiwifreund

Yesterday didn’t strike me as being especially significant. It wasn’t a holiday and my rare disease wasn’t cured, so…

Okay, first of all, I’m paying more attention to the things that bring people to this little blog – and I do mean little. Six months ago I was lucky to get three visitors in a single day. Now my number of visitors is increasing because of the ways that I am networking with other bloggers and the content that I am including.

Nothing could prepare me for some of the search terms indicated by the program, though. (You’re welcome.)

*where does horny women hang in nashville
*fragile handle with care advertise porn
*pantyhose kik names
*stocking fetish social sites in India

Congratulations, and let your freak flag fly. There’s no way for me to identify the people making these searches. I have to point out, though – no one searched for hot, bald, unmarried women?? I mean, it’s been a while since I’ve been proposed to by a total stranger. I hope that issue remedies itself shortly.

In the evening yesterday I took the short bus to a guided meditation session held in a health crisis center. I wasn’t sure how it would go because I tend to just kind of throw my hands up in the air and then rush onto the next thing, whatever that is, to keep my brain stimulated because I get bored easily. During the actual meditation, which really only lasted about 20 minutes, I had to fight against dozing off twice, and luckily I didn’t snore or accidentally pas gas.

Twice I saw an orb rise out of a pool. I only “saw” it to the left of my left eye. I told some of the attendees during our recap about my experience and let them know that their vibes had a specific effect on me. One woman asked me if I had always been able to read strangers’ energy. I have, but I have never really put effort into following through on what I read; usually I push it away or ignore it, which is actually very destructive because then everything gets a free pass into my life and I end up hip deep in crap.

Whatever happened, the universe made a connection appear for me. My short bus driver made a stop after mine to pick up a lady in a wheelchair. She greeted me when she was lifted into the van, and immediately we started chatting. I asked her if she had just come from a dance performance because the building she had come out of was a theater specifically set up for that purpose. The answer was no, in fact; she was on the board for VSA Minnesota, the “state organization on arts and disability” (I got that from the website).

I told her a bit about my arts background as well as what I’m doing now (which is admittedly very little because my days are consumed by endless doctor appointments), and she gave me three organizations to get involved with besides her own to network, meet new people, be creative, and maybe even apply for a grant in my area of interest.

To the casual observer, this may not seem to be a big deal. It just drove home to me the fact that this state is so much more inclusive than where I moved from. I never, ever would have had so many resources to access for my particular physical challenges if I would have stayed in Arizona. I wouldn’t have been able to even ride the short bus because of their strict rules regarding who should be allowed to ride.

Really, meeting and speaking to that woman last night helped to open my eyes to the fact that even though I’ve got these major problems, I might actually be able to find a group of people who can see art where others may only see injury and illness. I am still working on retraining my brain to accept this as my new reality because the doctors have refused to keep operating on me. I still really miss driving my car while harmonizing at the top of my lungs.