To all my able bodied fellow Citizens
A plea from a terrified disabled American
This is a letter to you, my able bodied fellow citizens here in this troubled country right now …
We disabled people, people that you know and love; we are so afraid right now. We may not say it all the time. We know it's hard being someone who loves a person with extra support needs. Most of us are loathe to fully admit to our loved ones, even, the full extent of our challenges. We know we can seem like a real bummer sometimes. Always sick. Always stuck at home. Never feeling good. Just fucking needy. We are acutely aware of this, and believe me, it weighs heavily on us.
Not that I'm claiming to speak for all disabled folks, you understand, just that I know enough of them personally and have spoken and commiserated with enough of my fellow disabled Americans to know s thing or two about it. I also know that we’re all sleeping a little less, hugging our babies a little tighter, screaming into the abyss hourly, bracing for storms on so many fronts all at once. We all are, right? Absolutely. It will be terrible for everyone. Even the able bodied will suffer. I acknowledge this. But for those of us who are out here already living at a deficit, we are all profoundly aware of the fact that some of us, at least, will not make it to the other side of this second Trump term. Just look at what he did last time. The body counts on all sides were horrific, but elderly and disabled folks took quite a damn hit. You guys know. You lived that waking nightmare just the same.
The reason I'm laying this all out is just to send out to you, one and all, a sincere and desperate plea: Please, please go out and protest. Please make more noise. Please march and strike and do whatever you're able to. Goddess knows, I have that fire in my belly and I assuredly possess ample amounts of that will to fight, but with my body, my health; I'm just not going to be able to get out and do much of that shit myself. And friends, that fucking kills me. You just don't even know. I feel like such a fraud to be on here admitting that I won't be able to get out and protest and march while simultaneously begging the ones of you who are able to do that very thing. It burns. It rubs the wrong way and bruises my pride. But my pride counts for very little right now, my friends. It's a simple statement of fact that although I have such a burning desire to rage in the streets, my health would never permit me to do so. It is strength of a certain kind for me to admit my limitations. Developing that strength took time. So here I am sounding the alarm in the only way I know how. I have very little reach or influence in the world. My Substack is about it, really.
I am begging you my friends, not on my knees because holy shit I would never be able to get up again. But I am begging you that are able to do so, please push back. Do it for us, the ones who are sitting at home bed-bound, crippled up. Those of us who sometimes have a hard time walking from bedroom to the bathroom. Those of us who are in their houses or apartments that they very rarely leave. Because leaving the house is hard. It takes long preparation, oxygen tanks hooked up, walkers loaded. It is physically painful to leave, so taxing of our extremely limited physical resources. So we end up homebound most of the time. Isolated. Lonely as hell. Maybe even at odds with the people with whom we share our homes. There are so many of us out there. We are legion. And yet invisible at the same time.
We are so vulnerable and we are so desperate right now, my friends. We can see the writing on the wall, and it is not a happy script. And yet, we are tortured by the knowledge that our physical limitations will largely prevent us from participating in the physical part of the resistance as much as we would want. We need you, the able bodied and healthy, especially, to fight. Because what's coming down the pike…the storm that's rolling in? It's gonna reach landfall where we are first…at the edges of society. Living in the poverty end of poverty, my friends, if you know what I mean. We are barely hanging on already folks. And we would be there if we could. I know I would. Please. Be there for us.
❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥
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Indeed! When u r food budget is 291 (or less depending on where u live) and eggs r costing u a tenner, when we already took a back seat (especially when we don’t have kids n don’t qualify for extra help like welfare, which is beyond ridiculous n unreasonable) to other federal programmes, we already struggled to be acknowledged. That fight has gotten much harder. We’ve been thrown against a wall again. We won’t give up, but god diddly feckin damn is it tiring. We want to have a right to survive. We didn’t choose for it to b an extra hard fight!
Hang in there. Look, you may think what you are doing is small, a single raindrop. But, just think--all of us, in our own small ways, are many raindrops. And there is momentum mounting! Soon, there will be a deluge of raindrops. Already I hear that the Capitol Switchboard is getting 1600 calls a DAY. That's 40 times what they normally get. Separate, we may have little strength. But, pooled together, we are a mighty river, an ocean! I, too, am older and have many health problems and can't do as I please. We all must pick and choose how we can best support the resistance. I cannot travel to the protests, so I content myself with writing and amplifying the message, and send it out to all my social media, more than once, and in different ways to encourage people to act. At some point here I will get back into my art and use that as well. I have made no-sew blankets to give to those in despair & fear, as a tangible piece of love so they know others are thinking and caring for them. Be creative! And never, ever, let anyone say it's not enough. Whatever you give from your heart, is a gift beyond measure and beats back the dark. We will conquer the night!