The Spring of Joy

We in Columbus have been blessed with spring like weather recently. I was able to get out on my bike today that was great. It also got me thinking of a spring a few years ago. A was a college student, one of the top students in my program. I had a good job, when came to jobs college students have. But the best thing was after class was over I walked to the basement of Pommernce Hall to a campus eatery called the Mirror Lake Cafe and have dinner with a girl in a blue wheelchair. I remember she had the most beauitful smile I had ever seen and these brown eyes I couldn't help but get lost in. That spring we had something. We would sit in Mirror Lake and eat and talk for hours. We would laugh a lot, I remember when she would laugh really hard the skin between her upper lip and nose would wrinkle her up, i found it cute as heck for some reason.

She the happiness person I've ever known, but somtimes she would come depressed and frustsed. Sometimes it really got her down being disabled. She hated how it took her longer to do things, her memroy problems. She especially hated how people treated her. How people treated her. Let's be honest here some able bodied people treat the disabled like children She hated how social service agencies treat us like crap I could understand that because unlike me who was born disabled she was born non-disabled and made disabled by a horrible illness. I look at my disabilty just the way I've always been, no point in getting down about it, just got to play the hand I was dealt. In the end I guess we both right, when you are mistreated whether it's because you're disabled or whatever reason you should be upset and should do some thing about it. Everyone deserve to be treated with respect. Disabled people (myself included) often ignore mistreatment because it happens so often and we don't want to cause a fuss. Well guys we need to cause a fuss. I tried to make her feel better during these day, but this this was hard. Ithink it made it better to me with her, someone who cared about her.

Spring ended but what we had didn't, fall came and moved on campus just one street over from where dhe was living at the time, it was great. I remember that November it was a Tuesday night we had a thunder strom. Thunder strom are rare in Columbus that time of year. I was alone at my place. I had this balcony outside my bedroom, I stood on my balcony and watched this marvel of nature. I remember she had told me she had loved thunder stroms as a child. It occured to me that she herself was like a thunder strom. Strong beauitful, unpredictable, yet attractive. I went to bed that night and dreamed, I was with her during her illness. That I was with her when she transfered in and out of wheelchair the first time. The next day was a normal Wedesday and that night I started having the health problems that would lead up to my first seizure. Looking back on it it look more as a mysatic thing then it was. I remember the next month we had dinner together at Bob Evans. It was a couple weeks before Christmas. I still didn't know what was going on, I was half convinced I was going to die. We just sat there most in of the the meal in slince just enjoy each other company like a old married couple. I remember thinking enjoy this now we migh get to the old married coupled point and the end we didn't. It wasn't my health problems that got in the way either it was the normal crap. The main reason I think we didn't tell each other everything we needed too. I never really told her how I felt about her until the very end. Also she was I very private person who had alot of walls around her, I was able to get behind those walls to some extend but not as much as I would have liked.

A lot have change in the short time since then. In a sense that thunder storm that November night never ended. It is still blowing around the county, the econmic, and my life. We our in the greatest ecominc crais since The Great Depression. We are in wars in Iraq and Afgahstan. I have a countless number of seizures. Had and recovered from a mental health crias. Had about four different jobs. I don't feel like the same person I was back then. For one thing I was in a hurry to settle down with a wife and kids back then. I still want those things but now I realize it will happen when the time is right. There thing I want to do in my life before I settle down, questions I want to answer. I have become a roamer, a seeker. I've also become more relaxed and overall happier.


I still think of her and wonder if she thinks of me. Will we ever reunited, it is not likely, but I wouldn't rule it out. There a lot of water under that bridge. But what we had was strong.

Dreams

When I was a small boy I had a dream of growing up and becoming a teacher. I kept it under my hat because fullfiling the dreams of other, my therpist, my teachers, my parents, etc. They are dreamed me as being almost normal. This is a common situation for disabled kids then and unfortunly now. I not saying disabled kids shouldn't encouraged c to increase there capilibity, but it should be should made to feel like the child working on a team that is working to benefit his/herself. Not that she is working on own to please her parent, therpist. or teacher. And at some point someone needs to say ok folks this kid might be capable of more but we would have to push him to hard so let's just teach him to work with what he got. At no point should getting increasd capibity should become the center of a child's life. This never happened with me, my mom alway saw a time had time to be a kid and I'm thankful for that. Some of my friends I grew up with wasn't that lucky. I knew kids who went to therphy two three times a week plus what they got in school, this for CP, it not like this was for some progessive condition. That's not worse case, I met a mom who took her son out of state for therphy, that just utterly ridulous, that mom needs her head examined.

End of rant, back to subject. So I finally told people of my dream of teaching when I was in high school. I was told that it was unrealistic for me to want to teach because I was disabled. Even people who normally supported me, such as my mom, were skecial. The main issue was my speech, which I admit I speak differently but most people do fine understanding me. So which much gnawing and nashing of teeth I graduated high school and enrolled at Ohio State as special education major. I choice special education because I wanted to help with disabilties.

So I get to OSU and surprise things go very well. My grade are high, I love my field placement, got really good evalution. Also made some great friend and had some great times. Then my senior year things started coming apart. First off two faulty members who supported me and who I had a good relationships with retired. Next, in November I started having neulogical problems, with balence, sstiffness, and tremors. No one could explain why or how to fix it. I soidler on the best I could. Winter of the year of doom I had spend a quater working in the OSU reading clinc like all special ed major. The director of the clinic was convinced that disabled people couldn't teach. She did everything she could make my life hard that quarter. I tried to resolve the problem dipmaticlly, when that failed I tried yelling and treating to get her tenture revoked. This while was saking and falling down, can we get this picture. I get pass the reading clinc nazi don't ask me how. Then I had to apply to grad school because the osu program makes get your master before get your lincense. I was accepted to grad but the faulty minus my two mentors decided they were going to doubt my ability to teach despite my record and hand to prove myself during my first quarter grad school. I started grad school in the fall but I just couldn't take it, I was still having phyical heaith problems and I had started to have mental health problems. I had fallen into a deep depression. To compete in grad school you have be at your A game I was far from that A year of living under bad circumstances had take it's toll.


After I left grad school and got my health problems under control I started working at Easter Seals which is a preschool for special needs. I did a lot of healing there. I quickly fell with the kids and the work the staff and I were doing. Before then I had focused on K-12 special ed now I knew my place was not there but with the little ones. I have bounced around since then but my dream has been teach special needs preschool. I have found a program at Wright State Univerity that will let me fulfil my dream. I would have to move to Dayton, money is issue and Im still having seizure but rarly. Im not sure if I would able to be find a job after the progam. If I do it it will be a big gamble. But if the gamble pays off my dream will come true and more importantly if it pays of I might make possible disabled child to one day fulfill his dream