I usually do my own grocery shopping with minimal to no assistance. I may be creative and adaptive, but I have yet to find a way to push a shopping cart while using my wheelchair. I refuse to use the power carts because I really don't need to add battery power to my erratic driving as an announcement would follow me throughout the store "Clean up on aisle 9....Clean up on aisle 8...Clean up on aisle 7". I also have no desire to trade my $4000 wheelchair for a wheelchair with an attached lap basket and trust that nothing will happen to my chair as it sits basically unattended at the front of the store. That is not a fair trade. So what I usually do is use two or three reusable shopping bags hanging on the back of my wheelchair, and as I shop I place the items into these bags. With proper packing, I can easily get a week's worth of groceries this way. I rock at packing reusable shopping bags, I just need to learn to be aware of the added weight on the back of my wheelchair. Thank God for wheelie bars!! And I swear there is a conspiracy to place whatever items I need on the top shelf so that I either have to play damsel in distress and ask for help (ugh!) or unbuckle my feet, undo my seatbelt, and hold on to the shelf to do the amazing standing gimp trick. That one really freaks people out because they assume that since I am in a wheelchair, especially one with more complex foot restraints, that I can not stand, so when I suddenly pull myself into a standing position to reach something they totally freak out. Sometimes I choose that one just for the effect. ;)
Well, on Monday I had the opportunity to go grocery shopping with an accomplice. Because we were going to receive a decent amount of snow (about 8-10", not that impressive by Michigan standards but enough to limit a wheelchair's accessibility until everything is plowed, salted, and plowed again), my Dad took me grocery shopping so I could get anything I might need for the next few days. His job was to push the shopping cart behind me, and my job was to toss items into the cart over my shoulder. This worked well until he became distracted, and not having eyes in the back of my head (as much as my students would beg to differ) I picked up a package and tossed it over my shoulder. Instead of hearing it land in the shopping cart, I heard it land on the floor. The woman scanning the shelves next to me turned and stared at me as if I had lost my mind, having just taken a package of food and thrown it over my shoulder for no apparent reason. I just laughed as she backed away rapidly. When my distracted father caught back up to me, I told him that he had missed something, and asked him if he could please pick it up off the floor for me. :)
When we went to check out there were a lot of other people doing the winter storm stock up, and there was one cashier working. Great planning. So I went to wait in line. The older woman ahead of me turned and waved me ahead of her. I tried to tell her I was fine waiting, but she insisted and well, her cart was filled while mine was not so I figured if she wanted to do something selfless but silly who was I to stop her? Inside I was thinking "sucker!" because I am anything but pitiful or helpless. Then the guy ahead of her did the same thing. I seriously tried to protest, but to no avail, so I went from 4th in line to 2nd. I mean, I have a seat while I am waiting, its not like I have to stand in line people!
Then the fun part - the putting away of the groceries in a kitchen roughly the size of a handicapped bathroom stall. There is no room to turn my wheelchair around in the kitchen - it is pull in, back out. I have to wheel out to change my mind. Storage is limited in my kitchen...heck space is limited in my kitchen, so I have to be creative with my storage options especially adding reasonable accessibility into the mix. By the time all of that was done, I was ready for one of the special treat ice cream cones I had bought - I think it was well earned!

Life isn't fair. It's just fairer than death, that's all.

William Goldman, "The Princess Bride"

We are a generation of entitlement, a generation that believes that just because we exist we are automatically entitled to a life that meets some arbitrary definition of "fairness" and "justice". Last time I checked, my birth certificate did not come with any warranty or life time guarantee. There were no promises made, no refunds or exchanges offered, and no manufacturers warranty covering any part of the product.  This is life, not a lifetime movie in which everything works out hapily ever after once you use the required number of kleenex for those appropriately emotional moments, moments that are acceptable because you know the end will always be positive. Reality is not a movie of the week. You take what you are given and you have two choices. You can demand that you receive something else, that you exchange or get a refund of sorts and complain bitterly about the injustices of having not received all that you feel entitled to or you can suck it up and deal, living life as it happens and appreciating the fact that in all honesty we are entitled to nothing. The world owes us nothing but we tend to demand an awful lot from it, thinking we are somehow special and set apart. I am frequently told that somehow the way that I live my life is courageous and brave or that I am doing something extraordinary in how I am dealing with all that has happened in my life. I don't see it that way. I never signed up for this, I just happened to receive this body with all of its genetic misspellings and malfunctions. I can waste my life yelling that it is unfair, but that will change nothing. It will not undo what does not work right in my body and it will not guarantee me more time to experience being alive; it will rob me of precious time to treasure life and to make the most out of every single moment. I refuse to allow the things that went wrong to define me or to limit me or to prevent me from living my life. I only have this life and there are no guarantees or refunds or warrantees or exchanges and I do not feel that I am somehow so special that I am entitled to a life set apart from the realities of the world. Sure, it absolutely sucks at times and I get frustrated and overwhelmed and angry. Then I have a good cry if necessary and suck it up and deal because I am still so blessed. This is my life, and I can do nothing other than live it the best way I know how. I don't see that as anything special or brave or courageous. It is just ordinary me living the life I have been given and refusing to let a moment be wasted on false senses of entitlement or pity when they could be spent in joy and celebration and hope and wonder. I can dance and laugh and sing in the rain just as easily as I can in the bright sunshine, and puddle stomping is grand fun.

This week has already been packed full of activities, more than my normal. Monday I worked with my stepmom canning salsa and applesauce, Tuesday I went swimming and then went on a variety of errands (found shoes that fit over my AFOs, found warmer winter clothes), and today I did a lot of standing as I sorted through more clothes at a charity where my stepmom volunteers and then went out to lunch. What the agenda still held was a dinner out tonight, swimming tomorrow morning, visiting with my niece tomorrow afternoon, packing for my trip, fixing my shoes (I need to add a new hole to the strap so the buckle works), sewing my slippers (long story I will get to another time on adapting), and the normal day to day stuff (dishes, cooking, etc.). My body is very good at giving me warning signs that I am pushing it too hard - I mean huge red flag warning signs. I am very good at ignoring these warning signs and pushing myself until I physically crash and end up very sick because in my mind changing my life to accommodate my illness is the same thing as surrendering to it. Obviously, I repeatedly learn that in the end the illness wins no matter what but I am stubborn. I detest giving it anything, even though when I don't give a little it steals a lot. Today I am making the decision to listen to my body, to see the red flags and respect them. I cancelled dinner and may skip swimming tomorrow morning depending on how I feel when I get up tomorrow. This is not a surrender. This is negotiations, this is a strategic retreat before facing forced defeat. Instead of trying to prove a point that I am in control and not the disease by trying to push beyond it, I will prove that I am in control by working around it and not allowing myself to get to the point where it overtakes me. I just have to remind myself that responding to the warnings of my body and accommodating them is not a surrender to the illness and then I am able to allow myself to make the choices that I need to make to maintain a decent level of functioning. So no white flags flying, but a purple blanket wrapped around me as I take a nice long nap!