A Broken Body's Checklist

    I meet the dichotomy between a temple and a broken body with a history of how I have treated my life during the past 50 years.

    Before I knew to do so with any consciousness, I found strategies to accomplish with one hand the tasks the therapists designed to get me to use, and develop my right hand and arm, which has been affected mildly by cerebral palsy.  My right foot and leg would not be a party to my lifelong defiance.  They limped along bearing who she was without apology.  They did not succumb to the temptation of demanding pretty party shoes.  They did not cave in to the temptations that their head dangled in front of them.

   When told it did not seem I could do a given task, my gut response was, "Do you wanna make a bet?"

   I pushed my body to her limits.  For a lifetime, I resisted anyone who suggested I might lower my physical standards.  To have acted otherwise would have been to admit defeat.  Charlie Sheen is hardly a role model I seek to mimic.  Yet, his words, "Defeat was not an option" rang true.

    I thought that my defiance was paying the highest respect to the temple in which I was given to live.  I had simple obligations to repay--to live up to.  To a mother, who walked out of her first-grader's room to let her dress, knowing that the only way her daughter could ever live independently started with being able to dress herself independently.  Convinced she was right, she left, not to mention needing to escape the struggle before her eyes to be surmounted.  My memory is only etched in my mother's words.  Mom was--she still is--my wellspring of strength.  Seek Mom for strength.  Seek Dad for a breather from independence's demand toward a fuller life.  He was a softy.  He is afraid of my ferocity.

   My gut response--pressing my body mercilessly beyond her limits--was so ingrained in me, that when told that there might be another way to live that my alleviate the stress on my emotions--long-term disability--left me dumb-founded.  Told that I would be qualified for long-term disability with little difficulty, I was stunned.  Relieved.  Yet, the shock of being stunned was such that relief took awhile to take hold.

    How am I answering the question of, "How have I abused my body--pressed her beyond her limits?" I can create a personal checklist to be evaluated by me or others.  

     1. Tried to bear too much weight on my right ankle.

     2. Tried to keep physical pace--walking, running--with other people

     3. Tried to carry too much in my left hand, stretching the limits of my left thumb beyond what is fair, much less healthy to do.

     I am sure that I am missing many items that should be a part of my checklist.  Yet, for now, these three items rule the accommodations I must pursue.  The appointed items to add, and the appointed time to add them will come.  When?  Odd though it may sound, I must listen.  How much weight am I bearing?  What limits does my past experience convey to me?  Am I willing to listen?  Am I willing to pay the price for not listening?

     Am I the only person, who needs to make such a checklist--whose temple must be revered?  Again, it well may be that others do not need to draft such a list, yet, I wonder if it is worthy of consideration.  Is my list the same as anyone else's? No. But, do other people in my life need to respect my list, and not call me to violate it, in order to be in relationship with them?  Yes.