If you ask me the greatest, and most dangerous, thing about the internet is the range of what you can do on it.
The beauty of the internet is that you can do anything you want on it.
It’s hard for me to say what my favourite websites are, but I would have to say it’s probably those that connect me with others or help to access the world. Social media, like Facebook or Instagram, apps like Google and Google Maps are a god send for accessibility and independent travel.
The world is incredible inaccessibility, in ways I don’t really notice as I am simply so used to live in it. But the internet helps me find my way through it and make it more accessible.
If you follow this blog closely you may notice I occasionally backdate some posts, in fact this post is backdated so you have in fact not timetravelled or missed anything.
I do this if I miss a day as I like to keep my streak. I know that’s not what you’re supposed to do, but it makes me happy and it doesn’t hurt anyone, so I don’t really care that you’re not supposed to do it.
I’m writing this post as I sit on a bus, I just remembered that I didn’t write yesterday’s post and it’s annoyed me. It’s annoyed me not because it’s something I feel I have to do, I really do enjoy these posts. It’s annoyed me because I know I had a post that I wanted to write, and the day just got away from me.
Hopefully I will get round to writing that post, but as always I make no promises.
Thanks for understanding and following along. And happy yesterday 😊.
Sometimes I can’t help but think how might life might be better if almost everything I try to do didn’t make me anxious. The part that snnoys me most is that I’m not always anxious about doing things. It’s like I get bouts of confidence in doing something, where I know if I act now, I’ll be able to get it done. But these bouts of confidence never bappen when i can actually do the thing that needs to be done. It’s like my brain, emotions and being adult can never be on the same page.
Right now I need to make a phone call to get proof of my disability to renew my bus pass. But I cannot make the phone call until tomorrow. And even though I know that I’ll be fine making the phone call I know waiting until tomorrow is just going to cause me more anxiety. I just want to get it done.
I had the covid and flu vaccine earlier this week, I was accidentally injured by my carers, I came on my period today, and I have a long day of travel tomorrow.
To sum it up I’m not feeling my best. But life goes on and I will be okay.
Sending love to everyone who’s not having or had the best of days lately.
It was a very long day today which being disabled made more difficult. Or to rephrase how I’m supposed to say things like this in society, societies inaccessible made things harder for me today.
Though I went on both trams and trains, the most complicated part of the travel was in a taxi. Taxis don’t are so inacessible.
I don’t really have the energy to explain more than this. I apologise.
Now don’t get me wrong I don’t technically have a curfew however the care that I need usually means I have to be home for a certain time. At least as I begin writing this I am sat on the bus, several hours after this time. Though by the time I finish this post I will likely be home. As my journey on the bus is short so I don’t think I will have the time to finish the post before I get off.
I do apologise as I finish writing this it is in fact the next day. That is the cost of staying up late. I slept 11hours and woke up tired. Not forgetting that ih the middle of this I had my care.
It’s odd getting to be our when you want to be, especially when your body isn’t used to being out. Your brain is like woo, we’re out being an adult, this is awesome. Your body I’d like when do we get to go to bed?
My body is used to the curfew pushed on to me. This makes it hard fo brake even when I want to, despite never wanting it in the first place. This makes it seem like I choose the curfew even though I didn’t. Then it can be even harder to argue not needing it. Though in all honesty while I don’t need or want the curfew because I have carers I will always have it.
Share a story about the furthest you’ve ever traveled from home.
I’ve actually had a lot of discussion about travel recently. And I will be getting the train for the first time in about a year. So I find it interesting that this question would come up.
But to answer it, it would depend on how you ask it. Do you mean the furthest I’ve travelled in distance or independently? I can answer both these questions.
The furthest I’ve travelled in the distance is either to Ireland or Scotland when I was a child, I’m not actually sure which trip covered the biggest distance.
The furthest I’ve traveled independently would be to London I think.
I do remember getting stuck on a train once when I was a child because the passenger assistance hadn’t come despite it being booked and I didn’t know what to do.
Thankfully as you can tell by the fact I’m going on a train next week, that experience didn’t put me off traveling on trains. In fact I’d probably travel on them a lot more out of my area if they weren’t so expensive.
What was the last thing you searched for online? Why were you looking for it?
This isn’t exactly the last thing I was searching for online but it is the most interesting. Technically speaking the last thing I googled online was a British pound to US dollar conversion tool.
After seeing on a tiktok how much disabled Americans who are on benefits, have to live on I wanted to compare this to disabled people in the UK. I’m not going to answer who is better off, if you want the answer I suggest Google yourself.
But I recently had to Google for a train journey I’ll be taking next week. Its been a while since I’ve been on a train. The last time was soon before I lost my mum. Truth be told I’m kind of nervous.
Thankfully from an accessibility point of view, I have been able to book wheelchair assistance using an app, which I really appreciate on a personal level as it avoids me having to make any kind of phone call. I hate phone calls.
So today I experienced one of the most annoying elements of accessibility and one of the best I’ve seen at least where I live, in a very short space of time.
The bus I tried to get this morning already had a wheelchair user on it, which meant I couldn’t get on it. This needs to change. We need to create buses with space for multiple wheelchair users at the same time. This is particularly true when society tends to push disabled people together, by segregating and excluding us from the rest of the word. I’m thinking of Special Educational Needs (SEND) Schools specifically here. It doesn’t make sense to force disabled children into the same social spaces then deny them the social space to go out together as they become teenagers and adults.
Then a newer bus, while still only with one space, did not involve the awkward turn other buses have apparently deemed necessary for wheelchair users to have to make. So it’s an improvement, in a way. Not as big of an improvement as having multiple spaces on a bus for those in wheelchairs, but it’s something.
Can you imagine if buses only let one person on at a time? How ineffective they would be at their job? But we’ve deemed that an okay place for disabled people to be in. That is something that will never make sense to me.
In my family we call it a wonder when you decide to go somewhere without having any real destination to where you are going. Usually but not always this means going to somewhere that you have been before.
I tend to do these wonders with my sister, on days when we don’t have a lot to do. But today I did something different, I went on a wonder on my own.
Now this is something worth noting due to the inaccessibility of the world around me. This means that going to new places can be risky for me because I simply do not know if they will be accessible to me. To do so alone in a way increases this risk because I am solely responsible for ensuring that I don’t get stuck trying to go somewhere that isn’t accessible to me.
On today’s wonder (which actually happened several days ago by the time I upload this) I almost did this on several occasions, as I went to a more secluded area where the paths are less defined. I decided to simply go until I felt the pavement was becoming unsafe and then turn back. Maybe not the longest wander out there but still a wonder.
Though I did manage to get myself passed this gate.
Which I’m counting as a win. Even though it may not look like it, trust me in an electric wheelchair this is difficult to pass, when the gate is locked, especially alone.
I actually found the most inaccessible areas of this wonder to be some of the pavements that I have had to use after it. Which I personally think is very interesting when you look at just how uneven the ground that I was traveling on was in the photo pictured above.
This post is to say that if you feel like something is important, is an achievement, then it is an achievement. That if you get something out of a day, it is a day well spent, no matter what others may think.
What turned out to be about a mile round trip if that, was a great move forward in my feeling of freedom. I felt free. As free as I suppose I may ever feel in such an inaccessible world. Maybe the freedom comes from a Wonder itself, or from what a Wonder actually is, I’m honestly not sure. There’s something in moving about the world with no real place to go, and if I’m honest with myself completely independently, that I personally find very relaxing.
You are allowed to get whatever you get from whatever situation you find yourself in, even if others may not see it as so important. Their opinion of what you do with your time does not matter.
And also remember an adventure doesn’t have to take you far, if it brings you joy, that’s all that matters.
Side note – I do apologies if the Image Description isn’t visible or very accurate, if anyone could check this out and let me know I would be grateful. I also apologies for the delay in uploading this post.
My Inaccessible Life 