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Really Quick

This is a phrase I use a lot. Most people do, when there are multiple things to do, and maybe you are meeting someone in the midst of it. "I'll just do [such and such] really quick, and I'll see you over there at 5:30, cool?"

I don't do anything really quickly. I should just stop saying it. Better yet, I should stop believing that I will be able, or it is wise to move faster doing anything today than it was yesterday. That's not the way it works with a disability. And I'm sure being old, or having health problems works the same way.

Some say it teaches me patience. I would like to think so. But the battle to see everything through the eyes of Christ takes place on the strangest fields. I don't feel very patient, when I drop something I can't pick up. Or when I can't grab something I want to hold. I become very conscious that in fact I am disabled. I ask stupid questions like, "Why is this so hard?" or petulantly assert, "This should not be this hard!"

And then you laugh at yourself.

People get some combination of impatient and concerned when they see a person struggling with a small thing. I don't mind help now and again, but then again, I do. It's probably pride. I have to win at everything. That blasted button or zipper or whatever it is is not going to win if I have anything to do with it. And when I win one of these things, I act like I'm Roger Federer, and I just won Wimbledon. Oh, you may not see it, but it's there.

If Purgatory were not a sensibly painful cleansing that we have been told it is, I know what mine would be: I'd be assigned to button shirts, hopefully learning not to swear.
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