What are you passionate about?

Honestly I’m passionate about a lot of things. If I think freely I think about dancing, music, writing, education, my pets, Inclusion. I could honestly probably keep going.

You’ll have noticed first on this list is dancing. I think it will always hold a special place in my heart. I used to dance as a child, professionally. And the freedom that brought me sometimes feels unmatched to any other freedom I’ve ever felt.

But there’s no career in wheelchair dancing. And try as hard as I wanted I was never going to be able to be a non disabled dancer was I? So there’s no career there for me either.

So I needed to find something else, someone else to be, and for the most part I did.

Sometimes it feels like my disability took my passion from me, other times I feel like it gave it to me.

It’s the reason I write, I think. It’s the reason inclusion matters to me. I even think that it’s the reason my pets matter so much to me. They see me for me, not me disabled, if that makes sense. And well music, I suspect that’s left over from dance isn’t it? But music’s wonderfully freeing so I’m not complaining.

But ultimately my disability took dance from me. Even if I found I way to be a professional wheelchair dancer, which I love and would do in a heartbeat by the way. I would never be able to be the dancer I could have been in my head, you know.

I’m not trying to be depressing. I think it’s important to deal with and accept these kinds of emotions, the disenfranchised grief of the life I was never able to lead. And that I can do so while also living my best at the life I was dealt. It’s a balance.

I think its a problem in the disability community that I’ve seen to force positivity all the time in our situation when it isn’t realistic. I think it comes from trying to prove to non-disabled people that we are happy as we are, and that we deserve to exist without the world trying to change us. Which is of course absolutely true. But we are also allowed to feel bad sometimes as all humans do, to wish life was a little easier or different. I think that’s completely normal. And not allowing ourselves to feel that if we do is trying to hold ourselves to higher standards than anyone else.

All this said, I think for me my passions change, they have to. For me to live my life. Today I’m passionate about having a good day, and I think that’s enough.

What are you passionate about today?