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Who am I? What do I want? Is the way I’m living now and the way I plan to, when I think about the future, right for me? Are the things I want to change and the goals I have, realistically within my grasp as a physically disabled woman or have I set myself up to fail? Am I dreaming of things that are mine to have or simply measures of success for an able-bodied person, something I will never be? Is the life I want sustainable? Will it protect my health both physically and mentally? Am I happy with the work I’m doing as a writer, author, actor and advocate?
Welcome to my brain. These are just a few of the thousands of big questions swirling around in there right now at any given moment. Yes, I’m sleeping wonderfully (not), thank you for asking. I’ve always been a curious person, questions my key to understanding and making sense of the world around me. I think it’s a coping mechanism, programmed into my very cells by the simple yet ironic fact that the beginning of understanding myself, as a little girl came with a big unanswerable question; why do I have Cerebral Palsy?
While I’ll probably never get an answer to that one, there’s still plenty of time for the others. At least, that’s what I keep telling myself, the threshold of mid-twenties now defiantly crossed as I recently celebrated my twenty-sixth trip around the sun. For those of you well ahead of me on that count, you’re probably (rightfully) rolling your eyes, but you have to understand. When you’ve grown up not seeing people like you just out there, living their lives, the idea of building your own is more than just terrifying.
It literally feels impossible. Uncharted. You worry that blank pages mean falling off a cliff and constantly feel like you could run out of time, at any given moment. Like time is something that can be stolen from you. Thinking that way doesn’t really make sense, but it’s the truth, unvarnished and bare.
That’s why representation matters. Why stories matter. Why our employment and relationships and ability to be in the world matters. Why creating space for disabled people to be visible and alive in all in the fullest ways is so important. Lives depend on it.
Ever since I was a teenager, I’ve known that in order to succeed in the world, particularly when it came to the big stuff like career and ambition, relying on others to give me opportunities was not an option.
No one was going to be standing there, waiting to open doors for me. I was going to have to create a Hannah shaped hole and let myself in *ahem*
When I look at the whirlwind that the last five years of me committing to exactly that has been, it makes my head spin. It’s been a lot to process with halcyon highs and indigo lows. It turns out, making your own place in the world isn’t always easy or straightforward. In fact, it can be lonely and hard instead. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth doing.
And no matter what questions I might have about my future, one thing is certain; I will always be proud of the fact that I’m hopefully doing my bit to make things easier for the generations of disabled community who will come after me. That I’m taking care of the little girl I once was and doing what she needed but never had.