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Life is a journey. That’s what everyone says. And that we’ll never know what will happen along the way. Such is true with my life. Would I have ever guessed, or how could I have ever known, that two years ago I would be thrown into life with paralysis, with a disability. It’s all part of the journey. The hardest part of that journey is recovery.
To recover from something that changes your life in most every way you can imagine, in most every way you wanted things to stay the same. You change yourself, both your physical body and inner identity. It’s inevitable. What also changes is everything around you.
Your world is no longer the one you know, the environment you’ve become accustomed to with age. Now I live in a different world from most other people. It’s a world full of unnatural interactions, of outward ignorance, of judgments, and of great physical test.
What I was lucky enough to learn a year into my recovery was that I didn’t live in this world alone. In a world filled with many obstacles and many hurdles, where one can so instantly and so easily feel alone, I found company. I was caught and pulled into this part of my world that is full of love and support and understanding. What I found was a group of women empowering women. I found the Rollettes.
These aren’t just ordinary women. They’re women who have overcome the unimaginable, each one with a story both different and the same from my own. They’re women living through struggles, with pride and passion and positivity. But they don’t just live. They dance.
For me, dancing is everything. It’s my link to that world I had to leave behind. It’s that small part of myself that can remain unchanged. I’ve had this outlet, this escape, for as long as I can remember. The medium of dance has been with me through every hassle, battle, and conflict of my life. It’s the release that’s always there. It’s the space I can put myself in, even just momentarily, where bad doesn’t exist.
Disabilities don’t discriminate. And neither does dance. Neither cares what walk of life you come from, what you’ve done in your life, or what you have planned. Neither cares if you’re old or young, male or female, weak or strong.
Living with a disability is living far from a normal life. It’s often living with the unexpected, with the uncomfortable, with the fear. But what dancing is for me is normal. It’s something I can expect and rely on. It’s a feeling and a movement I welcome instead of fear. However comfortable this space with dance is, it’s also the space that pushes me to do more and be more than I am right now. Living in a world where it’s easy, and almost instinct, to stop when you feel safe, dance is there to show you what’s outside the bubble I and so many others create for themselves. Safety, for fear of hurt and perception and other unknowns, is the wrong kind of comfort.
What I’ve learned is that your comfort zone shouldn’t stop you. It shouldn’t prevent you from living, from loving, from dancing through life. This is what I still fight to overcome. Too often my comfort zone is the place I spend my days, because that’s where I feel safe, where I can’t feel any pain or any doubt. For too long I’ve lived only in this safe space.
Working with the Rollettes and with dance forces me to let go of all that may hold me back. It’s this small part of my world that’s larger than life. This team, this sisterhood, does more than dance. Even though dance would be enough for me, to stun and shine through each beat of the music, it’s not all they do. These women bring together so many others. They support and inspire you to be boundless in life, and receive it as it currently is. For all of us there is no changing, no turning back, and what we do is help one another move forward. The original intention of the Rollettes’ conception was to create a space that feels normal, and although that may be the case for some that’s not what I think. I think it’s a space to recognize the irregular, to learn, accept, and embrace the abnormalities of our lives. These women have created a community that redefines what it means to be strong, female, and resilient. With dance they dazzle and push the boundaries that others place in the way. With all the common misconceptions out there of all the things that we can’t do and can’t be, the Rollettes challenges every single one.
It’s with dance that I have learned the most about myself, and with the Rollettes that I’ve learned just how much of a force I can be. It’s through dance that I recover, and I adapt, from all the challenges my journey has handed me. And while my life now is far from normal, it’s also far from ordinary. You won’t find that my life isn’t rewarding, or empty, or without kindness. Every day of my life is a small win, full of any dreams or realities I can envision for myself. With every day, and every dance, I can move more forward into showing this world that I no longer live in that I’m just fine with where I’m at.
