Reactions

Brachial plexus injuries spark all sorts of reactions. Whether a person notices or I tell him or her, people respond in a variety of ways. Some people just have no idea how to respond, some people immediately pity me, some people laugh, some people are surprised they've never noticed before, some people are amazed that I've dealt with it, some people just say they're sorry, some people ask a million questions, some people change the subject, some people don't believe me, and on and on and on. Something so rare and confusing can scare or amaze or anything in between and that's okay! I feel like you always hear stories about people getting really upset about insensitive comments by strangers about their insecurities or injuries or whatever it may be but with BPI, I don't see the point. I was born like this and I will live like this and maybe 99% of the people I meet haven't or don't or won't understand this part of my life so I've seen pretty much every reaction you can imagine and I'm okay with them all. I think I used to be really sensitive about it but why should I? Why should I be hurt by it when no one but me knows how my life has been changed by it? Once again, they don't understand and that's okay. It's okay if they want to and try to or if they don't want to and have no interest in talking about it or if they nervously laugh it off or whatever because I should never expect someone to understand or know exactly what to say to something they would never expect. And I hope none of you do either. No one's trying to hurt you so don't let them. You have to remember that you've been learning about BPI your whole life when the majority of the world has never even heard of it. They will react how they react and we gotta just let it bounce right off of us. 

Understanding

We are difficult people to understand. It's rarely simple for any particular person to understand even the medical implications of BPI, so to understand the implications that ripple beyond our mere body structure and physical ability is nearly impossible. But that's okay. Because understanding people in general is not easy. I'm not sure if I've said this before but understanding another person completely isn't probable. I can know your favorite food and your saddest moment and your worst enemy and your happiestmemory and your greatest dreams and desires but that doesn't mean I understand you. No one's brain works the same and no one can hear another's thoughts and no one can truly understand another person. At least that's what I believe. I don't mean that we can't connect with people on levels we didn't even think possible. We can love people more than anything. We can often know a person better than him or herself but I still don't believe it qualifies as understanding that person. Because as hard as we try, we can never walk a day in someone else's shoes, let alone think a day in his brain or relive a moment from her past or feel this person's dreams. Humans are personal and complicated beings and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

I spent much of my 4 weeks in Mexico thinking about this. I was surrounded by indigenous families who had memories and dreams and clothes and homes and traditions and beliefs and daily lives much much different than mine or those of nearly anyone I'd ever met. They spoke a different language and grew up in a situation far from similar to anything I'd ever seen but I still tried my best to understand them. And through all that trying, I realized that it was only an extreme version of what we try at every day. We are always trying to understand each other. Reaching for an infinity that is of course impossible to achieve. It doesn't matter that the differences between me and a 5-year-old girl in this community were far greater than the differences between me and the girl who sits next to me in math. All that matters is that every moment spent with these girls is spent in an attempt to understand them better. And though I never fully will, I don't regret trying. We should never regret trying. Because how could we survive without people reaching out to us. How could we ever get anything done if we didn't try to get to know the person sitting across from us. I, and many others with brachial plexus injuries, spend a lot of my time trying to help people understand me. Isn't that the point of this entire blog? To help us understand ourselves and to help others understand us? And maybe you and they will never reach complete understanding but maybe that's a good thing. Because we are personal and complicated beings and I wouldn't have it any other way. Privacy is a kind of therapy we all need. 

Language

Am I the only one who, during an extended stay in a foreign country, went through phases of first really hating and second really appreciating language and then back and forth and back and forth again?

In the beginning I was very mad at language. My dear friend Google informs me that there are about 6,500 languages spoken around the world today. Most of us can only speak fluently in one. 1 out of 6,500. I spent a large portion of my time in Mexico being really angry at the 6,499 languages that had the power to build a wall between me and the millions of people in the world who speak them. I was really mad because I realized that there are millions of people in the world that I will never have the privilege of knowing because they weren't raised speaking English and I wasn't raised speaking French or Japanese or Russian or Czech or Mandarin or Nahautl or German and as a result we have no form of communication. And that also makes me incredibly sad. And sure, I speak a decent amount of Spanish and did have the privilege of getting to know dear friends from Mexico and Spain in the past month but there were too many moments when I realized that it would take forever for me to get to a level with my Spanish that would allow me to be as close to them as I am with my closest friends back home. But there were also moments when all I could do was marvel at language's ability to connect us in ways that would have been absolutely impossible without it. It was amazing to put to use all my years of studying Spanish and actually see their tangibility in the real world. And even as weird as it was to speak English when I came back, I was so grateful for the ease in which I could communicate again. Almost without thought, I could say whatever I wanted to say and I could understand absolutely everything!

So forgetting my brief hatred for language, I've found that it's really an asset we never think about or appreciate. Humans can connect on so many levels and for that we forget to be grateful. We have the power to understand so many people even if you don't speak one of the most popular of the 6,500. And we have the power to learn more languages in order to shrink the wall looming at 6,499. So have a conversation with the person in front of you in line at the coffee shop and sitting next to you on the train and learn more languages and ask your family members more questions and tell your friends everything. Because we can :)