Too Sweet, Unless You're Pumpkin Pie

 I talk about life with Cerebral Palsy in the context of family addictions, mental illness, and enough religious baggage to write a book (we're about halfway there). But, why? To deconstruct the mask, to be seen, to invite conversations, to promote questions over assumptions, to shine a light on the importance of context, and to tell my own story instead of having it told for me. At work, I promote the importance of customer service to the point of being annoying. The rest of the time, as I wrote in a poem this year, “I'm alive in the shadows of death.”

Human beings, disabled or not yet disabled, are complex creatures. I recently shared with an interviewee my passion for introspection and personal growth. I believe in the importance of kindness because biblical compassion is literally etched into my skin, even though I left the Church a few years ago. I do my best, which isn't always very good, to extend kindness to others because I know what it's like to be treated like shit.

I'm an advocate for kindness and compassion “But, while in this world, I think I'll take my whiskey neat, my coffee black, and my bed at three. You're too sweet for me” (Too Sweet, Hozier). I believe in kindness because my heart knows absolute meanness. However, it wasn't always that way. The very people I learned some of life's harshness from also showed me that it could be as sweet as the pumpkin pie I love so much, that I enjoy as a birthday dessert in August, and that I blatantly lifted from one of my older sisters.

I don't talk about my siblings here much because I'd rather talk around people that are living and because parts of their stories aren't mine to tell. It's also complicated. I'd rather tell you about a sweet memory of stealing the birthday pumpkin pie idea from my sister than about the fracturing and dysfunction of my family of origin. I wrote a song this summer called Family Values that tells you all you need to know about that. 

Why am I bringing it up here if I'm holding back? Because of the influence of context on every story. Life is sweet and heavy. I don't shy away from that because it's not who I am. And, if you're thinking “this guy's probably not fun at parties,” I used to be, but over the past several years I've found a balance between the sweetness and the chaos of life. I work every day to make peace of the pieces and that's why I tell you a seemingly meaningless story about pumpkin pie. It's not meaningless. It's making peace with the ghosts of complex trauma. 

I'm a person who's parted with most of my past traditions and most of my past in general. However, pumpkin pie for my summer birthday has been a co-opted tradition of mine for decades. And that's about as sweet as it gets for me. Because I do take my whiskey neat, like the song lyric above. And, I take my kindness or attempts thereof tempered by a scarred view of humanity, due to a scarred body, and a scarred heart..

When I show up for work, what I'm thinking about but not talking about under a cloud of fatigue that I try to mask, is the context behind the scars. I've talked about having to map my every physical movement for balance and vision safety, but I also map the words to mask what lies beneath. I don't do that to be vague as some might think. I do that for emotional protection. I feel a lot of things all the time and it would be pretty difficult to manage working without being in tune to that. 

I've turned the physical and emotional challenges into tools for my survival and thriving, but they're not superpowers. The superpower is a lifetime of adapting. Thus, I choose kindness because of meanness. And, I choose pumpkin pie because its sweetness compliments the heavy burn of whiskey; much like the best things in life give us perspective amidst the hardships of life.