This is all I ever dream

In my mind's eye, I don't walk with a crutch. I realized that tonight when I changed my profile picture on Facebook. I looked at the picture a bit more than I usually would and wondered what I look like to people I knew 20 years ago. I think I may have truly seen myself with that crutch for the first time. Perhaps I had only accepted the idea of being disabled but not the true reality of it.

In my dreams, I can dance. Not just the chair dancing or one foot dancing I can do now, but true, abandoned to the moment dancing. I'm able to see myself doing it right now and might even stand up to shake a leg. But then I remember that my legs shakes on its own and I can't truly twirl around my house without falling. I am a disabled 40-year-old woman and I cannot dance as I used to. Not that I ever did it well.

There are things I can do. I made my garden and it is truly beautiful. Today I shoveled probably a ton of gravel and didn't use my crutch while doing it. I physically labored to the point of nearly falling down, but I didn't fall. I made pathways.

Sometimes I feel like a fraud when I identify myself as disabled. Look at the tremendous amount of physical work I have done on my garden! It has been, as my friend Marie put, Herculean. I still teach, and teach well. And yet, I can't dance.

Do you want to know the truth? I would not be disabled today if I had had insurance 8 years ago. That's when I started having strokes. I know that, now, because I know what a stroke feels like. I was being seen by a primary care doctor who was very worried and wanted to do an MRI but I didn't have insurance. My mom would have paid for it, of course, but I didn't want to risk finding out that something was actually wrong. How would I pay for it? I'd never get insurance if I didn't have insurance before diagnosis. So, I suffered through years of unbelievably painful stroke headaches, heart attacks and untreated anxiety. And now, I am disabled because I could not afford a medical test. How much more productive would I be in society if I had been given the chance?

I'm not whining or trying to convince you of anything. I am still here and grateful for my life, disability and all. Still, I wish I could dance.

I suppose that's what dreams are for.

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