Hopeless

People who read my blog often get the impression, that things as they happen to me affect me in some profound fashion. Sometimes that's the case, but more often than not I simply can't afford on every single thing that happens to me, because things happen to me every day. I reflect on some of them here, mostly so you can get an idea what it's like to be me. How my disability tends to complicate my life, but then I overcome it. How it pushes me, puts me in new situations, but also teaches me new things. About me, about others, about how to change what I can and want to and accept what I can't. Defying some limitations, while coming to terms with other. Consider last Wednesday. I was coming from a meeting with a Very Prominent Gainesville Attorney discussing a Very Important Idea I cannot yet discuss. I was very tired as I had to be there in the morning, but still on cloud nine. The world was my oyster. I took a bus to go midtown, carry on with my day. I needed to grab lunch, I had things to do and people to meet before the evening movie on campus. And then the unexpected happened. As I was getting ready to roll off the wheelchair ramp I lost the grip of my wheels. My hands became stiff and I panicked. As my chair came at an angle it got stuck on the side of the ramp. I needed to straighten it up to go  down, but it wasn't moving. The bus driver was on a schedule, the patrons were staring, everybody was waiting for me to get off the bus. I tried to pull myself back up  by the grab bars on the door to maneuver my front wheels. As I did, the chair lost balance and flipped. So here I was, on my back, with my legs stuck in the chair, not really sure how to proceed. I was on a ramp- no room to rollover or move my chair out of the way. The commotion around me made me panic even more. I was tense, I was stuck, I was on a bus ramp on my back and the bus was on a schedule. It was the driver who reacted swiftly and professionally. He pulled the chair from under me allowing me to move. He then grabbed be my my legs and a woman who sat in the front raw grabbed me under my arms. At this point, coming from a meeting that gave me all this positive energy, I was hopeless. And I was embarrassed. Mot only for being in this position, not only because I relied on others but also for creating all this inconvenience, a situation in which they had to help. "Thank you. I'm so sorry. I'm so embarrassed- I said. Don't be- she replied- we are here to help one another. I could have spent days dwelling on the emotion, but I have long accepted that sometimes things just happen. I learn from them, yes, but at some point I just need to move on. Not focus on every little thing. I still had places and people to meet that day, that needed my attention instead. In the longer perspective I was left with a good feeling... What a nice woman. What a great philosophy.