13 April 2016
Imperfections. Blemishes. Shortcomings. Foibles. We all have them, we all struggle with them, and we all do our best to hide them or at least cover them over with a bit of … what … paint? a big hat? good humour? We tell ourselves that our imperfections are charming little quirks. That they are endearing. That we are okay or at least as okay as everyone else.
Our imperfections make us shy, they make us want to hide parts of ourselves, and they often make us feel diminished in the company of other people that we perceive to be whole and perfect. In a word, our imperfections make us vulnerable.
I used to be able to hide. Most of my imperfections – the ones that mattered most to me – were on the inside*. Relationship scars, emotional divots, being not so great at math and far worse at spatial visualisation – those things were revealed only if I wanted them to be revealed. This is where vulnerability and privacy intersect. The essence of privacy is being able to reveal what you want to reveal, when you want to reveal it, only to those persons to whom you’ve chosen to reveal it. Hardly anyone asked me to do calculus on the fly and no one gave me visualisation tests (hilarious clip from The Royal Tenenbaums … I feel your pain, Dudley). I was camouflaged and I felt safe most anywhere.
Like so much of my life, this has changed. I’m out there. My disability. My impairment. It’s all on show and there isn’t enough paint and good humour in the world to distract onlookers. I am constantly aware that the world’s perception of me has changed. I remember the first time (at an Auckland shopping centre) that someone looked at me with pity (PITY!). I registered it and thought “huh, that’s what pity looks like”. But as I continued rolling, I thought “how dare you pity me; you don’t know me; you don’t know what I’m capable of; you don’t have any idea what I can do, etc”. I wouldn’t have said I was outraged, but I was certainly surprised. Of course, this happens regularly now. Not the pity usually, but something equally gawky. I think what bothers me most is how routinely other people remind me of my vulnerability – it is the opposite of private. It’s like having a giant bruise on your shoulder and once in a while some stranger comes past and pokes it hard and you can’t really say anything because you’re not sure they meant it and you’re too polite anyway and you can’t push them away because you’re using your hands for something far more important like pushing a stinking wheelchair and your friends are supportive and lovely but you suspect they are all thinking ‘well, what did you expect? it’s a big bruise and it’s right out there and anyway they were probably just checking you’re okay and why are you so sensitive anyway’. Even though they probably aren’t thinking that at all.
I’ve been thinking about whether there is anything positive about vulnerability. It makes us more human, of course. Maybe it makes me more approachable … that’s good, right? I’m struggling to see the upside. But maybe there isn’t one. Maybe it’s just one more annoyance that I’ll become armoured against.
*(note that I am old/mature enough to have accepted that I’m not likely to be world class at anything – not running, not beauty, not cooking, etc and I no longer feel self-conscious about lack of perfection in those areas)