An apology, a realisation, and a contradiction don't walk into a bar

An apology

First things first. I did not make it to Disability Pride today. I am sorry. I did not make it because I chickened out. Having planned to go all week, cancelling meeting up with pals to do so, chickened out is a fair description, but when I put my empath hat on, I know I’m being too hard on myself for that.

At the start of this month I wrote, “The month of July is know as Disability Pride Month, and I would really love to hear from any disabled subscribers and their experiences with it,” when really I should have written that I would really love to hear from any disabled subscribers and their experiences with it, because I don’t know my own feelings towards it. And this afternoon, fully intending to go when I left my house, two dogs in tow, my feelings caused me to walk in a loop all the way back to my front door again.

Moving closer towards town, I felt a tightening in my chest. One I am all too familiar with, and one that I only recently learned how to describe. It has come to my intention that I have spent living my life by running into a brick wall. Running at full speed towards something I know I should be doing, like going to a protest, going to a party, participating in life in all its forms, and being blasted backwards by some unknowable force.

This force can be many things; anxiety, tiredness, laziness, self-doubt... complex feelings that I am afraid of addressing. The knowledge that I should be doing something, and not knowing if I want to do something. In previous incarnations, I would keep running and running into that brick wall until I finally broke through to the other side, putting the mess and the carnage aside, marking it as something to tidy up later. En route to Pride, I realised that I was encountering that wall again, and in a light bulb moment, I had to stop running, metaphorically, and figure out what that wall was made up of, metaphorically.