The evening had cooled the temperature a bit and I took the decision to have a nice evening walk to the park with a friend of mine, when suddenly she told me:
– “Rox, I feel like there’s a movie star next to me”
– “What do you mean?”, I asked her.
– “Everyone, and I mean everyone, when they pass by, they look at you. It seems that I am walking through the park next to a star”
Perplexed, I looked around and yes, I realized that what my friend said was true and that many prying eyes looked my way.
As we continued our walk, a question arose within me: what do these people thought of me under that veiled curiosity?!
I wondered what kind of questions filled their mind but which they did not have the courage to ask?
Probably the wheelchair makes them think, it provokes a thousand and a thousand more questions., Maybe they wondered how a person can be positive upon seeing me serene and with a big smile on my lips that transmits a great desire to live.
Surely they must have also thought about why such a young girl is in a wheelchair and the reason why she uses it..
I believe that the wheelchair overwhelms the thoughts of many people and blocks them from seeing beyond it.
It does not allow them to know the potential of the person, it prevents them from even seeing how much you love life, how many dreams and projects you have (as any common mortal) for the future. The wheelchair is often an anchor of the mind for those unfamiliar with this infinite world of disability.
In Italy it’s a bit simpler because people are starting to get used to seeing people living in a wheelchair, doing activities in society, participating in sports and doing various hobbies. However, in Romania these things are not so evident. In Romania there are many disabled people but most of them remain locked up in their house due to several causes such as – prying eyes, where the unspoken words cause discomfort, feelings of being intimated and / or not at ease as well as architectural cultural barriers which do not help at all.
There are steps so high that even with the help of a person you cannot overcome them.
It will be 50 years before Romania can become culturally a nation like Italy when it comes to the world of disabled people.
But in any case, people’s eyes limit people who use a wheelchair because they feel judged and they read that sense of pity., But all of this is caused by a lack of knowledge and therefore we are the ones who have to get involved and show that we are an envelope of emotions, that our hearts pulse with desires.
In the first years of my second life I was intimidated by the looks that I considered inappropriate but then I realized that this feeling was only in my mind and that it conditioned me. It used to influence me to the point that it did not let me live life fully. After all this time I have realized the best weapon to defeat every fear of prejudice is to smile at life.
“ Enjoy your life and don’t worry about what people think! “
