WHO AM I?

25.05.04

To be honest, I don’t have a lot to write today. Dear Konstantina (happy namesake day!), thanks a lot for always having the time to transform a boring confession to an interesting conversation. In this case, though, I wonder how everything I mentioned could be related to the procedure of socialization of a child and, what is more, to the image that a child forms for oneself through parental teaching. You started a great topic. I just didn’t quite understand what exactly made you write all that you wrote.

Even though I was born with the problem (cerebral palsy), my association with the term ‘disability’ is ultimately recent. This happens because my mother, when I was a child, used to strictly forbid me to describe myself as a disabled person. I didn’t dare say that word for anybody, I wouldn’t say it for myself in the first place. At first, this practice suited me just fine. I lived my life without differentiating myself from anyone and anything –like I do now-, although there was nothing to accept back then, since there was no problem, according to my mother. At least this is what she made me think. It was as if I was a completely different case of person, since, based on the impression that I had about myself, I was neither disabled (the others were the ones who were always disabled. Those who I used to meet in the physiotherapy clinics and the special schools. What did I have to do with them?) nor able-bodied, because I could not walk alone and I needed the others’ help almost on everything. (As for my image, no question about it. I thought I was a really handsome bloke. I could see neither my twisted legs nor my twisted head that I used to turn some times like a dog that looks at you in question.).

We drove the car in the traffic restrictions area. The traffic warden stopped us and my mother said: “The car is for people with a disability. I have a permit. I am taking my son to school.” The traffic warden asked: “Where is the disabled boy?” As if! I was looking here and there for the disabled. Do you now understand what sort of situation we are talking about?

I watched national marches on television. I watched the disabled ex-servicemen march on their wheelchair. I asked my sister: ‘I am disabled too, isn’t it’? She replied: ‘If you say that again, I will beat the daylights out of you!’ and she turned MTV on to watch Madonna, or Robert Smith sing “Lullaby” (a videoclip far too frightening for my age).

Not more frightening than the truth that I had to face, though, a truth that hit me later so abruptly that I wanted to die. Rejections, disappointment, as well as the cruelty of some people, who I still haven’t managed to forgive, absolutely degraded me. I was desperately looking for an argument to prove them wrong. No, I am not disabled. But it was pointless. Everyone and everything was smothering me enough to make me shrink and fit in the place they had kept for me. As for my mother, I almost hated her, because I felt that I was growing up in ultimate lies. My heart was beating like crazy and I was seeking in agony for the answer. What am I, in the end? Who should I go with and whom should I quit? (according to a popular song)

I asked everyone for help but all the voices were confused with one another and made fuss instead of being clear. I pressed the button and turned them all off for a while. Even my mother. I got confused in loads of thoughts and insanities. I stayed alone and speechless. I started looking patiently for tiny diamonds in tons of garbage. I had kept them somewhere in that garbage in case of an emergency. I held out my hand far away, wanting to hold on to something. I found the tiny diamonds. But I also found Nicholas. He told me he was there and he was waiting for me. I asked him to say something to me. He told me: “Don’t ask!”.