Park Place

I did it.

I hung it on the rear view mirror, pulled into the parking space closest to the door, and then sat frozen in disbelief.

You have a "picture" of them, don't you? The people who park in the "blue" spaces at the grocery store, the mall, the restaurant? They drive the big vans and get out in wheelchairs...they use canes or walkers or lean on someone else almost as frail as they...some, like my late father, are missing a leg and struggle to remove a motorized scooter from the back and seem to use as much energy getting situated as they'll use in their entire shopping trip.

And now, it's me.

I will thank you kindly if you tell me that I'm not the one you picture when you see the blue placard. Tell me I'm much too young, much too energetic, much too "capable" to be......handicapped. Yeah, just as I was much too young for crippling arthritis, too young for hip replacements, too young to be wheeled around in a wheelchair or to live half my days in a recliner. Much.

A few days before, I had waited in a long line down at the tax office, presented my notarized doctor's "note," paid my ten dollars, and stared at the hand of the man who wrote what felt like a death sentence but was really just the expiration date for the two placards he handed me: 04/01/2010. Oh, I suppose it will be nice not to have to repeat the exercise for four more years, but...2010? You mean there's a doctor that was so convinced that I'll still be in pain in 2010 that he'd put his signature on it? Hard to describe what that did to me.

Just in case you're wondering, yes, I'm thankful to have it. I joke about going over to Wilford Hall and having to park in Guatemala, but it's no joke (and rather ironic!) having a twelve-minute walk from my car to the desk of the orthopedic surgeon. And having to be dropped off at the door of Target or the grocery store has robbed me of some of my independence: I can't always go alone, because if I have to park forty spaces down, I'm already "done" by the time I get to the door. So I'm grateful for this bit of help and I'll be whispering a prayer of thanks many times, I'm sure.

Still, it's been humbling. Maybe that's a good thing. And maybe it will help me adjust my "picture" of the millions of people who pull into the blue spaces. Some of them look just like me.