For some time now that I wanted to write about this, but never done it, don’t really know why… I see things in such an anachronic way in the “physio” (and when I say “physio” I mean all the therapies I do) that when I arrive and the patients arrive, I feel like I’m in a cabaret’s freak show. As if I was an old attraction that is not useful for the show anymore.
Don’t be shocked; its something I feel and don’t bother criticizing me about it; only I know; only I live that everyday. Nothing impresses me now. I’m not impressed by men with callous hands by their work on a wheelchair and with a diaper; I’m not impressed to see a 17 year old kid with cerebral palsy with and atrophied body since it doesn’t move anymore; I’m not impressed by a woman who drools on a wheelchair because she can’t control the muscles of her face. It would startle me for sure in another phase of my life, but not now. Wanting it or not, I have handicaps, that is, I have deficiencies, even if temporarily or not. I don’t know. No one is able to know. Spite all that, I want to clarify that I AM LIKE THEM, but then again, I’m like you, because you are like them, so stop saying I’m not handicapped, because I am! In this moment I am! I want this to be clear, and I will explain: I understand what you mean when you say, “you are not handicapped”. Those who know me see the same Daniela as always, but I’m not. For those who know me now, I’m “Daniela, the one who had a cerebral hemorrhage”, and I have to agree with all of them – I’m Daniela of the cerebral hemorrhage, but I’m still the same person. I must learn to use my body now and not just wait for it to get better, so I must use my handicapped body because these handicaps exist and I can’t just ignore them and pretend nothing happened. There is always the hope of getting 99% better, but what if it’s only years from now? What if it will never happen? I reject the idea of getting worried with it, so accept me for what I am now. In the past I felt ashamed for being handicapped. That’s enough. Stop criticizing me for always affirming that I’m handicapped because, in fact, that’s what I am. People look at me, so what? I have a degree in Theater for some purpose, and now my life is an everlasting stage! It makes me tired of course, and I get angry about some things. But there is no major agony in this moment, than to be stuck to a place. Everything else is a show my friend, and for free! So that’s why I talk about the Freak Show. The artists who do this kind of shows don’t have any kind of problem with their traits who make them “freaks”, that is, uncommon people that make extraordinary things. There is strength, optimism, and a hope in my partners from the physiotherapy that I have never seen before. It’s the primary feeling of survival in its most physical aspect. We are the “freaks” of hope and determination. We are “freaks” because we learn that life by itself doesn’t matter. How we live life, that’s what really matters. Life doesn’t need you to exist by itself. It only needs something to make it move, and in this Freak Show I am the gatekeeper, the one who receives the tickets, the one who hosts. I’m not in either of the sides. I’m somewhere between the extraordinary and the normal, and I confess I never desired so much to be normal, as now. Yet, even so, I have moments of pure joy for life, for its simplicity, for example to be able to feel again. Learn to move, but having consciousness of every single movement of every single muscle, tendon, I must move in order to perform a task.
I’m learning the most important lesson of my life and you, you and even you make part of this story. So don’t criticize me; enjoy these moments with me, good or bad, because it’s sadness that makes happiness.
P.S – Of course there are those who gave up. Corpses, waiting for death to come. But that is a theme for another post…
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