A Wheelchair View

After my husband and I separated last year I deemed 2012 as a year of losses. I found it to be appropriate as I lost my transportation, my job, my pets, and my home. I sold my camera equipment and many other beloved possessions to move back to my hometown and literally started over. When 2013 came my life was completely different. I had my own apartment, a new job and I declared it to be a year of taking chances. So I blew off the metaphorical dust off of my book manuscript and updated it and through the inspiration of my late best friend Jesi, I published Echoes Through Corridors Silence in Rooms. Jesi recently passed away due to a heart attack. So much of her life was unfinished at 40 years old. This only fuels my intensions for this year and even though she is not physically here to push me as she always has I still hear her voice saying, “Well? What are you waiting for?!” I have received amazing comments on my book and had many people thank me for helping them realize th...

I started the Dr. Oz's Reparative Or 'Ex-Gay' Episode and couldn't bear to watch anymore of it after 10 minutes. It reminded me so much of a society who believes that my life would be so much better if I was not disabled so they try to "fix me" through therapy, surgery, and the worst one of all, faith healing. This stigma comes from small minds who are clinging to their cookie cutter magazine perfect world and anything beyond the mediocrity just has to be "fixed." After all we don't want to mess with the perfect body fantasy. Never mind that if we have a creator who does not make mistakes created people of all shapes, sizes, colors, abilities and yes, orientation; we are simply telling God how to do "his" job. We are robbing ourselves of the treasures of our diversities and the lessons we can learn from them all because we want to hold on to a idea that is just that, an idea. What if, my disability could be put into the background of wh...

"If my glass looks half empty, it is only because I've been blessed with the opportunity to share half of its contents with someone who was thirsty." Maria R. Palacios  When I was first married to my husband we moved to an apartment complex where I met two women who changed my life completely. We were all three survivors of abuse of various degrees. One of us was molested and controlled; one of us was brutally raped at gunpoint, and the other abused, neglected, and was forced to live with the man, whom she is certain killed her mother. Not only were the three of us survivors but we all used creative writing to cope and to work through the healing process. Our real healing didn’t really begin individually until we joined together and became friends. Together we supported each other; we drank coffee, buried ourselves in self-help and psychology books and shared our poetic journals. I gained strength that I never knew I could have again and while my experiences will always b...