I decided that I wanted to do a series of posts on the blessings that I feel having a disability has brought to my life.* The first thing I thought I'd talk about is the joy of having Personal Assistants or PAs, as I am used to calling them. For a person who loves to hear people's stories as much as I do, seeing 2 or 3 different people in a day (or maybe more) is like heaven to me. The thing about having PAs - at least in my experience - is that you often get pretty close to them pretty fast. After they get used to my care routine, there isn't much left to do but TALK (or listen to Taylor Swift or watch Regis and Kelly, Ellen and Rachel Ray :) )! Happily, this means I get to sometimes become the person who gets to hear the everyday things about people's lives. That test that was stressing a college student out a couple of days ago? I get to be the one to ask how it went. It's almost like I'm a person's roommate or significant other in the sense that sometimes I am the first or last person someone sees in a day, so I get to hear little details that other people either won't get to hear at all, or won't get to hear until later. It is an honor and a privilege to play that role in a person's life, and as each new phase of life begins and/or ends, I always miss the stories of former PAs.
For the PAs reading this, I hope that you know how much it means to me that you treated/continue to treat me like your friend and not just some JOB. Thanks for enjoying telling me things, needing to vent to me, and making me feel like we had/have a mutually beneficial relationship. I love you guys for that - and many other things - more than you could possibly know.
*Disclaimer-This series of blog posts is solely reflective of MY views about having a disability. Certainly not all people with disabilities would agree with me, probably not even all of my friends with disabilities would agree with me, just wanted to make sure we're clear on that. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment