You're the Inspiration.....

I can't count how many times each week someone tells me that I am "inspirational."  I never know how to respond to such a compliment....

I suppose I should say, "thank you," but often I am left too dumbfounded to respond.

The encounter often goes something like this.*

I'm headed toward the bathroom on my floor at work.  I press the automatic door-open button.  The motor on the door stalls.  Nothing happens. 

Still (obviously) needing to use the bathroom, I push my back and behind into the door to slowly guide it open.  Another woman headed in my direction sees me struggling and offers to help.  I decline her offer, because I really can open the door myself, and I would probably fall over if she took it from me since the whole weight of my backside is now pressed firmly against it.

"Thank you, but I've got it, " I say.

"You're so inspirational, " she says with a smile.

There is an awkward silence as I ponder what she has just said.  Am I inspirational because I can:
a) Respond to her offer of help?
b) Open a door without asssistance? 
c) Go to the restroom without aid?

Even though I'm unsure just what I've done to inspire her, I'm glad she seems inspired.... and also, that I finally made it into the door.  I avoid answering her by looking down as I hurry into the restroom stall.

Later in the same day, I get into a cab.  I am always particularly inspirational to the cabbies in our Nation's Capital; sometimes they are enthralled by my very existence.

Cabbie: "Where do you work?"

Me: "I work for the DC government."

Cabbie: "Oh, so you work in there in the cafeteria..." (points toward the food court in my building).

Me: "No.  I'm a lawyer."

Cabbie: "So you answer phones for the lawyers?"

Me: "I answer my own phone.  I am a lawyer."

Cabbie: "Really, so who cooks and cleans your house for you while you are at work?"

Me (bewildered): "No one.  I cook and clean when I get home."

Cabbie (with mounting, considerable shock and awe): "But your parents must help you with that, right?"

Me: "Well, I have plenty of friends and neighbors who help me with things sometimes... but I do not need my parents' help."

Cabbie: "So.... you really can cook?!?"

Me: "I hope so. I love food too much to starve to death."

Cabbie: "And clean the floors?"

Me: "Yep."

Cabbie: "And get yourself ready for work?"

Me (rolling eyes at this point) "Yep."

Cabbie: "Wow!  That is AMAZING!!!!"

Really, Cabbie?? 

Amazing??

I'm not so sure.

You know what I think is amazing?

A double rainbow.

The Navy Seals who found Bin Laden.

The guy who walked a tightrope across Niagra Falls.

Those things and people are amazing. 

Me coming home to make a tuna sandwich?

Nope.

A baked potato?

Nah.

How about a Mexican casserole?

Well.... it might have a little something on the double rainbow, but I'm pretty certain it falls just a smidge short of true inspiration.

I am just like anyone else in this town-- trying to make a living, help others daily, and lead a happy, productive life.  I put on my pants the same way you do every morning.  It just might take me 3.7 seconds longer.

Do those 3.7 seconds make me inspirational?  No, no more so than my decision not to give up on myself and just leave the house without pants.

My day-to-day life is not lived to inspire, but to aspire.  I start each day with a set of goals and I make it my business to accomplish them before the day is through.

Don't we all?

Same game. Same aim. Different attack.






*The conversations above are re-enactments of actual conversations in which I have been engaged by other people.  The names of all of the parties have been omitted to protect their identities, though unfortunately, nothing could be done to mask their ignorance.

Desperately seeking....

What exactly?? I'm not sure, but that's the question I ask myself every time I talk to another one of my girl friends with disabilities who are single and navigating the dating world. All women who are in the slightest bit insecure can be prone to settle in many aspects of their lives.



Love is one such aspect. And a woman who is in the least bit insecure about her disability is no exception to this rule.



I have been a prime example of such insecurity at times in my life. I have stayed in unhealthy, abusive relationships (sometimes for long periods of time) just because I thought that the type of relationship I was in was what I deserved or the "best someone like me could have." If I started to think to myself that I was being mistreated, I would talk myself out of it.



"It's good sometimes."



"I mean, at least he loves me."



"I really want to get married and have a family, and he seems to want the same most days."



What I should have been repeating to myself were the things those guys were saying to me....



But "at least he loves me" has a much nicer ring to it then, "Jessica, you need to get over yourself. You're an attention wh**e."



Thinking about the "good times" is much more pleasant than hearing him say, "Can I have $50 more from the Jessica L. Hunt Scholarship fund?," or reliving the sting of any of the slaps I've had across my face from a less-than-worthy guy.



A woman's insecurity, no matter how strong she thinks she is, weaves its own web of desperation. And once we start to smell the slightest bit desperate, the good guys run away, and the bad guys pose next to us with a box of tissues and a sly smile. A guy in need of money, assistance, or just a convenient warm body will get a woman caught in the sweet, sick stickiness of her own desperation. And before she knows it, she'll have made a home there, by becoming complacent with a situation, and often a person, who is so much less than what she really deserves.



"Beggars can't be choosers," one of my friends said to me.



Begging? Do we really need a man THAT badly? I know I don't. Again with the desperation. Where is it written that disabled has to equal desperate? All men and women, disabled or not, are made in God's image. We all deserve people who will treat us respectfully based on that very fact alone.



I rode in a cab today with a driver who saw me as desperate. In the span of 30 minutes he had offered me sex (multiple times in multiple ways); mentioned that he wanted to impregnate me as soon as I agreed to date him, and couldn't understand why I wouldn't accept these "wonderful offers" that he was throwing my way.



"I'm willing to date you, if you want," he said. "No one else will love you."



Oh, sir.... that's where you are wrong. They already do. God does.



And I'm fairly certain I have an army of family and friends who are just as "willing" to kick you where the sun doesn't shine, just based on the way you've talked to me in the past half-hour.



The sad thing is, I know some women who probably would have taken his offer under consideration. And maybe a few years ago, I might have been one of them.



But today, I know that I deserve so much more than a fast-talking, vulgar so-and-so who doesn't even know my name but is sure "he loves me."



The stench of desperation takes a while to dissipate, but I assure you, that if guys like that are who the world has left for me, then I will be superbly happy spending the rest of my days single, safe, and free from surreptitious snakes-in-the-grass.



I'll be the first to admit that I've honestly yet to have a good, healthy relationship with a man on this Earth, but I know enough about what one isn't to know that I only want the opposite.