Identity

This weekend at my sister's college graduation has been a lot of listening. From countless conversations with parents and friends that I don't really know (and probably never really will know) to speeches upon speeches, it has been a lot of listening. But not pointless listening. Not just background noise to the food I'm eating or the thoughts about how uncomfortable this chair is, but noise worth listening to, worth paying attention to. Noise worth hearing.

One speech made by the class orator spoke a lot about identity and about the general direction in which our world is heading to change relations, stereotypes, and discrimination by race, gender, and sexuality. But I think what he said can apply to more than those groups. I think we can easily apply it to our "identity" as BPI's. The orator preached that we need to stop focusing on what makes us different and rather focus on how we are similar. So much of living with a brachial plexus injury is recognizing how we are different and how that is affecting us. But we forget that we're really not all that special. That we can identify with a brachial plexus injury but really we should identify with everyone. Because no one is perfect. No one is happy with everything about their body. No one is capable of doing everything. Everyone does things differently, and that makes us the same. In order to change this world into a more united one, we need to start noticing this. We have to start noticing that segregation didn't end 50 years ago. That we all segregate ourselves by our "identities" every day. It's okay to be similar to someone other than those with whom you identify. It's okay for us to stop making groups for ourselves, for us to start forgetting about our differences and start recognizing our similarities.