Young Girl, Young Girl, What Do You See?

After some time of deliberating, the Doc walked in with the results. "A herniation of your L4 and L5 discs is causing them to bulge and give you nerve pain" he said, unseemly disturbed. Seriously? I'm 29 years old and I already have degenerative disc disease? Sure it's common, by the age of 50, 85% of us will show signs of this back pain. But again, I reiterate : I am 29. I have three little kids, grad school, part time work, church responsibilities, hiking trips...the list went on. The plain and simple truth of the matter is, I don't have time for this.

I hobbled to my car, easing my way in like I had just given birth while Dave drove as gently as possible back to the house. I had used the walker in the hospital to ease some discomfort, so I suppose I could secretly use it at home. After all, I hadn't seen any young suburban moms hobble to the park with snacks in their walker basket lately I would wait until this inflammation died down then I would go back to life as normal. Back to how I want to define myself. A definition that didn't include a walker, a bent over crouch or a medicine cabinet full of little orange bottles. Sure I had seen lots of people that needed assistance walking. A few girls at school in wheelchairs, older adults at church, grocery stores, heck, I constantly urge my own family members to do what's best for them and use a cane or whatnot. They were still themselves, weren't they? They were the same friends and family I loved. Nothing had changed except for a superficial adjustment of their physical ability. A walking stick wouldn't define them. I never thought poorly of them or considered them inferior to me.

BUT - then it dawned on me. Of course I did. I formulated my opinions of them, opinions that had some sort of negative connotation. I had to have. For when it came time to accept my lot of back pain, I denied it. I refused to use a walker in public. I pushed myself beyond my abilities because it's what I've always done and I won't be stopped by my pain. After all, I had places to go and important things to do!

And then it started. I noticed little things at first like toilet paper being a far reach in a stall. Heavy doors at the post office or stairs without railings. I began to notice things that could have made my life a lot easier being absent from my everyday life. Taken for granted. Overlooked by the busy and self-determined society who illuminated their privilege of ablism.

However, it's not the tangible things that bother me the most now. It's the spoken or unspoken language we all use from time to time. I caught myself saying things like "I feel like an old lady" or "my 30's better be better than this". I noticed myself get embarrassed as I would have to get up slowly from a bench once our name was called at a restaurant, or if there was an activity at my job that included a lot of movement, I passively sat out instead of saying "I have a bad back". Wasn't I a confidant woman? What was this new condition that had broken my strong hold on the world around me?

Discrimination comes in many forms.

It's most often the ones that are so closely knit into our society, our language, our slang or habits. It's disguised as personal preferences and glossed over as cliche's. It's constantly being re-enforced as we skip through life and give no second thought to what "I feel like an old lady" is really trying to convey. Are old ladies bad? Is old age something to avoid, full of pain, and horrible things? Perhaps some might think so. What if I said "I feel like an old man"? Would that insinuate a plethora of wisdom or, like an "old lady", insinuate aches, pains and miserableness? Certainly, it can't be that terrible. Certainly that's not what my future holds. For I would hope that by the time I have come to the age of being considered an "old lady", my faith will have increased tremendously. My love for my partner will be overflowing with selflessness. My children will have grown knowing their God, their passions and the love of their parents. Particularly, their mother, the "old lady".

The question is continually raised - Isn't it silly to be making such a big deal about language? Isn't this "Politically correct" business a bit too extreme? Perhaps. But first, consider this: what images am I instilling in my children as they grow and learn? If my reference to a people or population usually comes with negative undertones, what message? Or if I'm speaking of myself and the sentence is laden with put-downs. hmm.... I wonder.