The Guide

Sometimes I can’t remember.  Other times I’m washed up by a flood of memories that altered my life at the wrong time.  But that has changed because now it seems they pop up at just the right time. 

Throughout my journey of having been introduced to disability, I’ve gained intense experience of starting over, but also a great insight.  I’ve had people at the beginning of their journey ask me, how did I get past the memories that held back my progress.  Truth be told, I haven’t.  They still show up but now rather than let them defeat me, I insert into my memories how far I’ve come; I changed my way of thinking.

In order to answer questions, I have to put myself back into the memory where my answers lie.  Each time I do, I not only see it, but I feel it, smell it, and hear it, all of which pours into how I can answer the question.  It’s puzzling to me, but it’s as if I have been tasked to be a guide.  Each time I share my memories with another who is in the place of in-between – their before and their now – I look back on the many roads I’ve traveled and how they guided me to where I am now.   The words come to me from where I don’t know, but they’re there and are so strong I feel them churn my passion of wanting to share my story, to offer hope, inspiration and motivation, and an understanding of where we are now.

It’s hard to think someone can truly guide another without ever experiencing what it is they are guiding.  It’s like teaching without being taught, falling short of communicating the story without having been one of the authors. 

Of course, and thankfully, there are professionals that guide people through their feelings and help one to adjust, I reached out for that myself.  But it’s different when being with someone who’s “been there, done that”.  Someone who is a peer, one who is of equal knowledge of the memories. 

Although I genuinely appreciated when someone wanted to offer their support, I felt the phrase, “I understand how you feel” could only come from someone who is standing in the same field.  When I started my experiences, I had a lot of anger where that phrase felt like an insult.  How in the world could anyone understand what I was feeling when they have no concept of what I was going through, both physically and psychologically. 

You see, throughout my journey, I’ve only felt a real connection with those  experiencing disability, someone who is going through it themselves, someone who could guide me.  Anyone can describe symptoms but unless someone has experienced them you can’t really understand how it feels.  How it takes away, replaces, moves, and shatters everything you ever thought as the “real deal”.  But let’s face it, there is no real deal.  The deal is in how the cards are dealt and sometimes we get a pretty crappy hand.  It’s all in how we play our memories, drawing strength from the deck and adding it to our hand.  Here we can win the game by acknowledging how far we’ve come.  

You become a guide.