I’ve been thinking about the word recovery. How it relates to my current state and mind set. Am I still in recovery? After three years, am I trying to get something back that I had before? It certainly doesn’t feel like it. I feel like I’m working for something new. I’m not referencing old goals, old abilities, or old moves. My injury changed me so much that I will never move my legs the same way again. I’m not going to walk like I used to. I’m not going to bike or climb or stand or kick when I swim the way I did before. So I’m building something new. Not because I want to do the things I used to do in the way I used to do them… that’s certainly true. But that’s not a realistic goal and not my motivation. My goals are for the body that I have now. And I’m building the world’s smallest right quad… but I’m not going to get back what I had before.

Which brings me to the central point of this post (I think.) It brings me to the question of identity. What do I call myself? How do I see myself from that floating point our minds occupy right above our heads? How do others see me? I’m about to move to a new town. It’s time for some of my least favorite activities: packing, cleaning, and not knowing anyone and making new friends. It’s time to introduce myself to a whole new set of strangers. I’m worried about leaving the last group who knew me before my accident. People I climbed with and danced with and hugged at their level and followed effortlessly sliding through a crowd. I’m afraid of going through the process of meeting somebody and being wheelchair post-doc or wheelchair surfer or wheelchair neighbor. It bothers me to an almost inexplicable level. So I want to figure it out. It’s not that I hate wheelchairs. Though, I must admit, when I’m feeling frustrated it’s easy to direct my negative emotions towards the seat on wheels allowing me to move around. The wheelchair has a thankless job and I am part of the problem. But the reason I do this is in direct response to my environment. The wheelchair eclipses me like a scarlet letter, a lucky moon. It’s the first and often only thing people see. And that is a huge amount of work for me. I’m dreading losing my primary position as the agent and author of my identity. And that’s a hard thing to deal with for somebody who is a story teller, a deeply social person who already feels lonely. Or, at least, not as good at creating and maintaining relationships as I would like to be.

I’m used to creating communities around shared activities and experiences. I am no longer a climber (ok, that one is still hard to internalize — I can say it, though). I can’t make friends with all the climbers at UCSD. Am I going to go make friends with all disabled people? Am I going to pigeon hole myself? Somehow being in the “climber” clique feels good but the “adaptive surfer” identity feels tiny and limiting. There is certainly a difference in size. I’ve met most of the adaptive surfers living in the San Diego area already. But it’s more than that… it’s the wheelchair thing. To embrace that group feels like embracing the thing I feel is trying to blot me out. Have you ever rolled down the street in a group with more than one wheelchair? I have. It’s a parade. People stare overtly (instead of in the usual sneaky way) and children are gathered to the protective flanks of their mothers. It feels like erecting a wall.

And maybe it’ll be fine. And I’m just in crisis over an imagined problem that will resolve itself in a natural and pleasant way when I actually do move. I am a hopeless optimist, after all. I want to look to the future and see a slightly adaptive version of the life I saw three years ago. Not something that feels like doing penance. I want to build something new, not try to recover what I had. I want to bravely more towards the future, not just look for something lost. And I want to create an identity with the freedom every person is given.