You know what I never posted about? An experience that I had over Christmas break from school. I was working my day job at the mall, and I got off of my shift at about two o'clock I would say, (It's been a while so I don't completely remember the time...) and I had been having a particularly difficult morning on the EDS side of things.
By the time I got done with my shift I was exhausted and I was limping rather badly because I had somehow managed to injure my left knee. My left side is my bad side, and if I can get through a day without injuring something on that side of myself, it's seriously a miracle. Anyway - I'm limping out to my car, which is parked in handicap parking, because I'm handicapped.
Lets talk about that for a minute, since I'm ranting.
I went through the arduous process of acquiring a prescription for a handicap placard from my geneticist because when I started driving I realized that walking from the south-end-of-east-parking-lot was really awful with misaligned hips. I can't tell you the number of times I tried to go to Kroger and had to sit down by the time I got to the front of the building. I'm basically an 80 year old woman - but I digress. I went through this almost two-month process because I wanted to make my life slightly less painful. I didn't do it because it would make my life more convenient, or because I wanted to play the system or anything like that. I did it because walking hurts, and no body likes pain. Agreed? Agreed. Moving on.
So I was parked in handicap parking, with MY state issued placard displayed clearly, hanging from the rear-view mirror. I finally reached my car after limping through the packed mall parking lot, (since it is Christmas season, after all) and I get in, start my engine, and begin to pull out of the space.
I see movement to my right.
There is a woman, looks like she's in her late 40s early 50s, standing next to my passenger side window. She knocks on it. I open it. I look at her questioningly and ask if I can help her, not thinking anything of it.
This woman looks at me with all the loving kindness of an upset crocodile and practically spits "You don't look very disabled - you take Mommy's car today so you wouldn't have to walk?"
I can only imagine what my face looked like after she said that. I was half pulled out of my parking space, blocking traffic, and this woman is waiting for my response. I was so upset that I burst into tears and said, "This is MY placard ma'am, from MY doctors - I have a joint disorder that causes serious pain. You don't have to be OLD to be disabled - if that's what you mean. Maybe you should think about other people's situations before you judge them - If I could have walked from the edge of this parking lot, I would have. But I can't." She shook her head as if she didn't believe me, and I continued to sob as I rolled up my window and finished vacating the parking space so that whoever she was saving it for could park.
Not all young people are self absorbed. Not all young people have no respect for authority. Not all young people think they can take advantage of systems that are there for people who need them.
Not all old people are disabled.
Not all people with disabilities are old.
Some of them are 5'4", 18 year old brunettes who can't believe that the handicap space is so far from the employee entrance.
If I had been 50, would anything have been said? 60? Maybe even 45?
What about gray hair? Would that have done it? If I had been wearing a brown scarf instead of the hot pink one my co-worker had just given me? Something more mature? Older? Would that have made me look "disabled"?
Do 30 year old men with cardiac problems walk with limps? Do they wear joint braces? Can you see their disability? No, you can't.
Would that woman have said anything to a 30 year old man, using HIS handicap placard? Probably not. Maybe he would have been old enough to be disabled, old enough to warrant respect.
Clearly my hair wasn't gray enough, my face not wrinkled enough, and my back not hunched enough. That experience has obviously effected me quite a bit, because I'm still talking about it three months later. Three months later that interaction is still etched into my mind, and I can't seem to get rid of it, because it taught me something about myself, and it taught me something about people.
I give those around me the benefit of the doubt. All the time. I think that I would want them to give it to me as well - I give people respect initially, because they have done nothing to me that warrants my behavior being anything but kind.
Most people don't give those around them the benefit of the doubt. People are judgmental, to a degree that I didn't think possible. It was severely naive of me, I know, but I didn't realize that everyone is always judging everyone else's motivations. I thought that kind of thing existed in the hallways of high schools where unfortunate kids were forced to spend four years of their lives - I thought the trivial drama stopped when you graduated. Boy was I wrong. Not only does it not stop, but it gets worse. It gets worse because after school sometimes your job, your livelihood is relying on the resolution of those petty dramatic moments. Sometimes conflict doesn't happen in parking lots, it happens in cubicles.
The point is, I was affected much more by the encounter than I would like to admit, and it's been bothering me. Someone who I personally thought would be a very nice lady was very unkind. Someone who she thought was a self absorbed young person was really a young person dealing with pain. Maybe next time she'll think twice about saying something.
If you've judged someone with only your eyes, you're probably wrong.
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