TAPs

"Excuse me ma'am," says Sarah looking up at the women at the counter, "Do you know where the elevator might be?" 

"Oh!"  says the employee, somewhat startled by the situation, "it's right down the hall." 

There Sarah was, just sitting in her wheel chair, yet the "TAP" reacted as if she had seen an alien. 

*** 

We've all had those days where we wake up just knowing it's going to suck. I realize they happen, but shockingly, they occur quite a lot. And I say shockingly because we have been privileged in countless ways. Looking at Troy High alone, we benefit from an education system that has proven to bring success. Why then do we complain day in and day out when people all around us, "nearly 1 in 5" to be exact, suffer from some sort of disability? We have no right to complain because basically everything that we ever wanted has been given. For the disabled, the greatest wish- to overcome their disability- is almost always out of reach. 

While these people struggle with the fact of their disability alone, we add further isolation by viewing them as different. Are they really though? Is movement or mental capacity the definition of being human? Is being able to walk or become a skilled employee the bases of existence? When others enter our lives who may seem a little different, it's as if our entire demeanor changes. Nancy Mairs lived in this atmosphere and realized people must see "that there are angles that they may not have considered." Like the employee's reaction to the disabled women, most of us are not "accustomed to seeing disability as a normal characteristic." However, Mairs claims that anyone of us at pretty much "any time" can become disabled. The cycle of exclusion then repeats, but now, the table turns. You see, the presence of disability is closer than you think, but it doesn't make you less human. Fear and happiness and anxiety can still be felt, but when it hits, the effects are far worse because you are all alone in a world full of "TAPs."