Silver Lining

My triceps are getting very strong. I have all this time to re-learn my guitar scales since I won't be dancing anytime soon. People hold the door for me all the time. I have a very easy conversation starter. My toes peep through my cast so at least you can see the pretty color of pink they are painted. I have a walking boot instead of a plaster cast, so I can sleep and bathe and shave my legs without having to worry about my bum leg. I can still manage to do the ab workouts at my gym. I get to ride the motorized shopping cart in Trader Joe's. I have a valid excuse to do nothing with my afternoon except sit in Tryst with my legs up and read my latest novel.

I noticed, last time around on crutches, that by the time they were removed, I had developed an acute sense of the handicapped. Although I was myself handicapped to some degree and couldn't help anyone, I was alert to the needs around me because I was so alert to my own needs. The girl with the books piled in her arms, she needs someone to open the door...The woman with the wheelchair can't reach the elevator button...The man with crutches can't balance his crutch and his latte...Does no one SEE that I can't open this door by myself?...

I also, to a lesser, but more interesting, degree, began to be aware of hidden needs...The lonely one in our group who never spends time with anyone one-on-one because she's so easily forgettable and people neglect to invite her...the girl who blamed herself for her parent's nasty divorce...The self-assured, confidence of a hig achiever that hides an intense confusion about what she's achieving... In many ways, I began to see my injury--and my crutches--as a metaphor for all our daily struggles. Even when I am perfectly healthy and capable, there are internal handicaps that are just as daunting as that heavy door at the bottom of the church steps, the one that was so difficult to open with one foot and crutches: I'm quick to judge, slow to realize that I've judged. I'm often more concerned with how people see me than how I really am. I am lazy when I think no one will notice. Although I don't lie, my first inclination is always to fudge the truth a little, to make a better story. Maybe these are your handicaps. Maybe yours are completely different.

Thomas Aquinas said, "Be assured that if you knew all, you would pardon all."

We all have handicaps of some sort. Some of them, we can see.