Disability in an able-bodied world

I was born with muscular dystrophy. I was thinking about how it feels to live with a physical disability in an able-bodied world, and this is the analogy that came to mind:

My parents are birds.

The ladies at the church are birds.

Strangers at the grocery store are birds.

Birds believe that every creature is either a bird or wants to be a bird. For the longest time I thought I was a bird. I did not look like a bird: I had no wings and I could not fly, but I kept close to the edge that separated me from sky. I often leapt with great effort, exhausted and breathless, emulating a few moments of flight that satisfied the winged voices: Fly, they demanded, flap your arms and fly. I tried as best I could. While I was in the air they were satisfied, but flying and falling look the same until you hit the earth. Every time I landed my skin bruised, and eventually my flesh began to tear.

The years passed and scars accumulated. I began to feel irrevocably broken as I realized my wings would never grow. Then one day I abandoned the voices who carelessly judged my inability to fly as an inability to try. I ventured inward and downward, meeting other wingless creatures who told me that I was actually a fish. Since then I have met whales and sharks, turtles and frogs, coral and cephalopods, and I have learned that the world is much bigger than wings and skies.

Many birds believe that the sky constitutes the near entirety of the world. They look down on deep waters and observe that sunlight barely penetrates the surface. They surmise that my home is a black void and that the weight of the ocean would be too much to bear. And yet, somehow, I soldier on with dignity. I am such an inspiration. But I know that these waters run deeper than the expanse of any sky. The sun might illuminate the surface, but I have no need for such light: I was made to navigate vibrations and waves, not by sight. This medium, my home, sways to the life it supports: I move, we move, and our world disperses in concentric trails and ultrasonic songs in an infinite oceanic dance. Every moment of every day these waters unite my existence with an ecosystem that is bigger than any one mind can fathom. Birds often believe that they are free and autonomous – that they have a perspective and clarity privileged only to those who occupy the highest perch. But I have examined both sky and sea and found that life is vast, interdependent, and much more meaningful when we stop trying to become that which we were never meant to be. I am not a broken or extraordinary bird; I am a whole and ordinary fish.