People Trying

Good evening! Well, I'm feeling very professional, which for a girl like me is rare. I admit I'm a little ashamed of this, but it is defensible, and I hope understandable, since I am currently unemployed. What has caused this surge of professionalism to come from nowhere is that I have just been volunteering on the phone, doing what I can do despite my lack of mobility and fitness (something I intend to work on very hard for the next few weeks), and now I am writing in my blog, which reflects the life I lead and I suppose is more an expression of how I live as a disabled person than the all-encompassing statement on life with a physical disability I imagine it to be, but that might only be temporary. In my wildest dreams, this little blog will take off into the stratosphere, with everyone interested in the daily lives of ALL physically disabled people, thanks to the determination of one to share her story. A lofty goal! But why shouldn't it happen? Why CAN'T it happen? It's lovely and rare to feel like anything is possible. So back to the volunteering I did making phone calls. It's because on Tuesday I attempted to do the same thing at headquarters, but there were Latex balloons polluting the air (as far as I was concerned) with their tongue-swelling, saliva-increasing, itchy eye-causing "powder" or their death rays, or whatever is appropriate. So I stuck with it for an hour of phone calling and tapped out. All of this is detailed in my entry "Small Surprises", of course, but I thought I should provide some detail for this entry. I've learned a lot about myself through this process, the most important thing being that I'm not very good on the phone. I confess that "cold calling" strangers is a bit intimidating, and even if I could power through that and do the work that needs to be done in order to reach my goal, people are extremely annoyed when you call during their dinner hours. This I knew from my own experience growing up, when my mother or father would answer the phone and sternly tell the volunteer to take them off the list, not call during dinner, or any number of things that always used to embarrass me for the callers, but that now, as an adult, I can completely sympathize with. But that doesn't make it right. I think that the TRUE lack of professionalism or common courtesy does NOT lie with the volunteer who might be disabled, like me, or even possibly elderly, or only able to make these cold calls after he or she is done with her day job but she still feels strongly enough to squeeze into her schedule--it's not them. It's the people they call who are entirely in the wrong for yelling or being rude to that individual calling. They are people. They deserve consideration if nothing else. Sure, we've all got busy lives and those volunteers might be calling to talk about a politician, which is the last thing many want to hear about when making dinner, or during the day when their busy-ness is at its peak. But that's no excuse for treating them unkindly. Granted, by and large it's a very small minority of those called who respond in anger. But it only takes one to ruin that volunteer for EVER calling again. Unless they have some thick skin, which I flatter myself I've got at least a little bit:) Even more since writing this blog. For all the positive feedback as I've gotten (and it's been wonderful), I've gotten almost as much negative, and that has really helped me grow. Being stuck inside so much of the time, I wouldn't otherwise get much opportunity TO grow as a person, if not for the dissenters! Living downtown has also given me the opportunity to toughen up a little too, in ways I never would've imagined when I was stuck in suburbia. The other day I was headed to one of my old haunts and a street person with very leathery skin and sinewy arms, a guy who'd obviously been through a lot who was continuing to go through a lot, stopped me and rambled on a little about his struggle. He mentioned how I "sure do get around" that he sees me all over--it's true, I'm out and about a lot. I was unfortunately in kind of a hurry, so I couldn't stay, but our parting words were HIM: "I've been doin' a lot of tryin'. ME: "That's what we're all doin', just tryin'." At the time, I thought, 'I'm tryin' to get to the store right now, for example,' but I didn't say it. And it really helped motivate me. Today I really wanted to opt out of the volunteering, but I reflected back on the guy's words, and mine. We're all just trying. And I could always stand to try harder. So I did:)