The Learning Curve II

So after I posted the last blog something both ironic and kind of terrible happened. Someone I was interested in didn’t want to date me because I have a disability. Yes, he actually said that. It’s easy to write a blog about things and write about how you want to feel or plan to feel when something happens. The truth is that I was crushed that day…utterly and completely. I was also angry. It’s hard for me to wrap my head around the idea that someone wouldn’t want to date someone else because of something they have absolutely no control over. I felt like I was being punished for something that was given to me. Something I had no part in. So yes, I had a pity party for about a day.

After some extremely helpful coworkers and friends let me vent, my rationality started to kick in again and I remembered what I myself had written here just a day earlier. I don’t have to convince anyone I’m worth being with and I realized I was looking at the bad experience all wrong. I felt like he was saying I wasn’t worthy of him when in reality, he wasn’t worthy of me. That’s why I tell people to begin with about my disability, to filter out those people who aren’t worthy of my time. I don’t tell them because I feel like I should be lucky someone would want to be with me (the “dented can”). I felt that way for a long portion of my life, but not anymore.

Once I worked through all of that, I got a little upset at myself. Upset that I hadn’t lived up to my blog. That when faced with the exact thing I wrote about again, I fell apart. I was relaying the story to one of my coworkers and he made such a simple and profound point. He said maybe it was a learning process. That what I wrote wasn’t just going to happen overnight and all of a sudden I could handle anything and anyone who didn’t want to date me because of my disability. I can’t even say how right he was. I put a lot of pressure on myself to live up to what I write here. To “walk the walk” like I mentioned before. I think I feel like once I have these revelations that I should automatically apply them to my life the next day and be able to apply them permanently.

But life doesn’t quite work that way does it? There’s always going to be people who hurt us as long as we open ourselves up to feeling things. And I can’t just shut my feelings off as much as I might want to sometimes and that’s ok. Just because I’m not Mother Theresa or a walking example of my blog 24/7 doesn’t make me a bad person. I’m trying and that’s the first step. I have changed…I am changing and that’s important. Most importantly, I’m learning. The learning curve may still be a little twisty and turny for me but I’m still at the wheel, still in the driver’s seat and that’s all that really matters.