When I opened my eyes, Ian had already left for work. The early daylight that crept in through the cracks of the blinds let me know I was on borrowed time—my alarm would go off any minute. Having crawled in at some point after midnight, my daughter was asleep beside me and with the rest of the house quiet, I lay awake wondering if my boys—my perpetually early risers—might actually need woken up for school.
I turned off my alarm to enjoy an extra few moments to myself before the daily morning routine of dogs, kids and chaos began. I’ve never been a morning person, always preferring the late-night hours of peace and quiet. However, I now enjoy the mornings Ian works early and I’m thrown into mom-life at its finest—the before school mayhem. When you almost lose your chance at motherhood, there is gratitude in even the most mundane and frustrating aspects of daily life. In the moment, gratitude is the furthest from my mind—I’m no saint—but I’m always reminded eventually. This particular morning, when all was quiet, I was grateful for the normalcy of not only the moment—the morning and the responsibility—but of the life we have. A life where spinal cord injury isn’t the focus.
For weeks—maybe months—I have been struggling to share here. Why? Because my story is changing. Well, the focus of my story is changing. When I created this space back in 2017, my life was being dictated by my spinal cord injury. Every day I faced new challenges. Every day I forced myself out of bed. Every day I faced grief, frustration and change because of paralysis. The things I have shared in over 120 posts, are things that helped me work through this massive upheaval in my life. But the dust has long since settled. Going into 2020, I need this blog to feel like an authentic reflection of my entire existence and, right now, I feel like it is only telling a small part of it.
I have been afraid to bring my whole self into this space because this blog is deeply rooted in my injury. Every time I have gone to write this post, it felt like I was betraying the soul of Help Codi Heal. But then I remembered that the soul of this blog is mine. And the goal all along was to integrate this injury into my life. To remove it from the spotlight and prove that it was a piece of me—not all of me.
So, I am giving myself permission to write about more. To share with you—story-by-story—anything I want. Maybe I’ll discover that my voice is irrelevant since finding contentment in this injury. Maybe widening the scope of this blog will limit the intrigue and reduce my audience. But it will be my heart and soul—exactly what it should be.
I never set out to be a disability advocate. The goal of this blog was always to create understanding and find common ground. I wanted to show how we can all relate to one another, not because we’ve shared the same experiences but because we share the same thoughts, emotions and life lessons that came from different experiences. I want to highlight how we all connect.
I hope you will come with me on this next part of my journey and we can discover, together, what this blog can be.
3 comments
You may not have set out to become an advocate but you are. Especially to women like both of us who have ended up in chairs. You take the time to reach back to women like us that are afraid or even terrified of their new situation like i was.
So you may not have set out to become an advocate but you are. You are also an inspiration to us, to me as well.
So thank you
Thank you Kerri. Knowing that I could provide some comfort in a tough time makes all of this so worth it.
Hi Codi – I’m very glad that your story is changing! Like you said, your injury is only a part of who you are and it’s great that it doesn’t consume you as much as it did. I didn’t really have a before & after since I contracted polio at 6 weeks. So, a wheeling life is all I’ve ever known. That common factor is why I started reading your blog, but it was interesting to see things through another’s eyes and interpretation. I gathered a few new insights and ideas as I read (you are a very talented writer, btw!) but it was starting to become apparent that you were gaining confidence and branching out more in your life. I think we are all advocates in a way when we just go about living our lives and people see us doing “regular” things. Times have changed – I saw very little of that when I was small. If something is blatantly wrong (like high hotel beds or no elevator) I’ll mention it to help bring awareness and change, but I don’t actively do anything but live my life. I’m so glad you’re hitting that part of your life!
I don’t think you’ll lose readership because you do have an interesting life and tell your story well! I look forward to hearing what you have to say and hope 2020 brings you freedom to just tell the stories you want to tell! Merry Christmas to you and your family!