Now Playing: Poor Little Fool? not sure...
Topic: Family
I’ve been conned. I just discovered it’s all been a huge conspiracy and I bought into it, hook, line, and sinker, and there’s no turning back now. I’m stuck with it and those who perpetrated this farce on me are now going to benefit from their dastardly deeds because I’m so good at solving problems and taking care of whatever comes up to be taken care of that I’ll look after them and step in to help with whatever is needed.
What on earth am I talking about? My independence, my ability to do it all, my success at being better at whatever I tried than anybody around me so that I could be allowed to do half as much. I bought into it totally. The people I loved and trusted most kept telling me how much they loved me and how hard it was for them to stand back and watch me struggle, but that they were doing me a favor and I’d thank them later.
Well, folks, it’s later, and now the game has come full circle and a little more. Now those people who never let me use my blindness as an excuse to avoid something that was hard for me to do, those dear people are now finding their own stumbling blocks. They are aging, and believe me; aging is not for the faint at heart. So now, these people who never let me back away from a challenge are facing their own challenges. And do I have a generation of parents charging into old age with determination and gusto? Not quite. Do I have parents who won’t be stopped by anything? Not quite. Nope, my parents are just like the rest. They complain and moan about how hard it is to get up from the couch, walk down the stairs, climb onto the bus, or walk to the car. Oh, but they know all about using whatever it takes to make life work better. They encouraged me to use my white cane and guide dogs even though everybody stared. They told me what other people thought didn’t matter when people made rude remarks about how I had to read with nose on page or had to feel for the bathroom sign to know if it was for men or women. Well, where is all that understanding and forward thinking now that it is they who have to adjust to new ways of getting by and getting on with life?
Mom enthusiastically prodded me to make big plans for a girls day in Canada while my step-sister was visiting. Would my mother gracefully buy a needed walker? No, she’d rather not go because she says she walks too slowly with her support cane and will hold us up. As if we were in a race to enjoy our day playing tourist.. If I’d done that she’d have let me have it. I bullied her into coming along and let her borrow my walker for the day making do myself with her support cane. She did wonderfully so I gave her the walker. Was she excited with the new found freedom and success? No, she was worried that she’d have too much trouble getting it into the car. “I could just spit!” to quote mother of earlier years.My step-dad has such a stiff let now he can hardly stand up from his chair let alone walk out of the restaurant to the car again. Going to Canada was out of the question which is what made it a “girls’ day” in the first place. Will he see a real doctor to find out what is going on and what might be done about it? No way. He goes to a chiropractor who hasn’t made it better in months in spite of Dad’s reports to the contrary. He’d rather not go with us than deal with this crippling condition. Maybe he’s glad to have the excuse not to goalong. I don’t know. But he’d have never let me make such excuses to avoid doing anything. When my first husband moved out, instead of help with maintaining the house, I was given a tool box with what I’d need and a do-it-yourself book (in small print) to deal with it myself. My dad expected me to do it, so I did.
I’m realizing that all the pushing done to make me so damn capable and successful wasn’t done out of love, for my benefit. It was done because nobody knew what else to do. If I couldn’t figure out how to do what the other kids did, they’d have had to deal with that. How much simpler to just make me figure it out and send me on my way. How much easier to push me to be like all the other kids than to accept they had a blind child who was different. My father never did let me be blind; he just bullied me into pretending I could see. And I bought into it and did it. I succeeded in doing it all, anything that came along.
Now that the cane is in the other hand, nobody wants to be seen with a cane or
a walker or whatever it takes to keep going in this world. Suddenly the shoe for the other foot is a glass slipper and it doesn’t fit anybody.