Instagram isn’t very honest.
We all know it, but we still let it pump our heads full of perfect pictures of perfect sexy people living their gorgeous Insta lives.
I’m actually jealous of my own profile pictures! I wish I could be bothered with painting that make up on and smile on everyday! Put it this way, I have a lot of dress down days you guys don’t know about. (I may have made your stick wearing my pyjamas…ooops just saying!)
A friend once called her daily ritual as putting on her fighting red lipstick. It’s her costume, it’s our armour, it’s how we’re going to deceive the world today. But why bother? Is it wrong to fake it til you make it? What if you do it long enough and the act becomes a reality, then it stops being deception, it just becomes your new state.
I believe in this, and I think I have become pretty damned good at it. So it still really shocks me how it chips so easily, how a crack appears, and then the entire armour just falls away, revealing little old me still struggling and fighting to live in this able society every day. So what makes it crack then?
Absolutely bloody anything!
Unfairness mainly, it makes me so mad. When I am treated differently, indifferently, badly, patronisingly, rudely…You all know. It happens to you too. I am trying to live in a world that isn’t designed for me.
I can’t get up kerbs in my wheelchair and I just say it’s ok I’ll go another way.
The toilet in the restaurant is downstairs so I say it’s ok I won’t drink anything, instead of I’ll just pee right here on the marble floor then Mister.
I park in a disabled spot and someone bangs on my window asking me why.
Or the old favourite, ‘what happened to you then’ and I’m expected to tell (in tasteful soundbites) my tale of infection, amputation, loss and disability to a perfect stranger, and then crack on with having a nice day. Byeeeeee.
What I’m saying is I’m not honest either. Some days are crappy but I don’t talk about them. Some days are painful but I don’t show you the tears. Some days are depressing but I don’t show you the blank face I wear. Some days the loss is too overwhelming but I don’t show you how I stay asleep so I don’t have to deal with it. I bet a lot of this sounds familiar to you. Please tell me if it is.
My brutal honesty is that after having my leg amputated I walked really well for a long while. But since then more shit’s happened, I’ve grown older and I can’t anymore. That’s tough for me to admit because that’s me essentially saying I doubt I’ll walk again.
Yet catch me on a positive day and I can say walking schmalking, I don’t need two legs to do what I do and live how I love. I ace it with one leg, from a wheelchair.
On a positive day I know I’ve achieved so much since my amputation, and it doesn’t end there. I’ve got a lot more to bring you and I’m not stopping anytime soon. I want to be someone who speaks out about the unfairness we live with, but I need to be someone who isn’t afraid to say what they’re feeling because they’re afraid of the reaction it might get. I have lots of words, some of them have four letters, and I’d like to share them with people who previously haven’t given a *four letter word*.
So I think what I’m saying is some days I can tell the truth, just like you can. Be patient with me while I find a way to do it more often. I don’t want you to think i’m superhuman, I certainly don’t think I am. I just need to find a way to show you my weaknesses, without you seeing that I’m also weak. I’ll find a way.
Much love,
Lyndsay
xx