On Halloween, Birthdays, and Self-acceptance
Yesterday was Halloween. What you may or may not about me is that I absolutely love Halloween, I always have. I love everything about it. I love the pumpkins, decorations, the candy, the over abundance of the color orange, the stories about ghosts, vampires, and witches, and especially the costumes. I love everything about Halloween, I always have. Halloween has always been my holiday, which is why it seems kind of perfect that it also happens to my birthday. Perfect, but also ironic.
Yesterday was Halloween, and it was also my 23rd birthday. I was born on October 31, 1990 to parents who had been expecting a New Year's baby. This, my Halloween birthday, my early arrival has shaped the entirety of my 23 year existence. I have cerebral palsy and I am a wheelchair user, this has always been who I am. I cannot separate these things from myself, and now I can say I don't want to. Being disabled has shaped almost every life experience I've had over the past 23 years, but if I'm being honest it is only recently that I have been able to truly accept and embrace that. It is only now, as I come into adulthood, that I can see that who I am is who I am meant to be, and that I am not, and have never been a mistake.
My favorite part about being born on Halloween was always the costumes. I loved the idea that on my birthday I could be whoever or whatever I wanted to be. I could be a princess, movie star, a witch, a clown, a beauty queen, or one of the characters from my favorite books or movies. I could be anything, but most importantly I didn't have to be me.
Growing up, I loved costumes and I loved Halloween because they gave me a chance to pretend I was someone else. Looking back on my life over the past 23 years, I can certainly say I did a lot of pretending. I think, if I'm being honest, I spent most of my life in costume, pretending to be anyone but me. I may have always loved my birthday, but I haven't always loved me. I spent most of my life being ashamed of my disability, of my wheelchair, and all the things that made me different from this idea of "normal" that people always talked about. I always knew I didn't fit into this idea, but for a really long time, I desperately wanted to. I spent most of my days, dressing up as a "normal person". I lived in this costume, and was frustrated and broken-hearted any time someone realized that was all it was. A costume, a disguise, a façade.
I spent most of my life being completely uncomfortable with who I really am. I avoided anything that made it more obvious to people that I was disabled. I didn't want people to see me as being "different". For a long time I believed that if I just wore the costume long enough, people would start to think that was who I really was. I believed that if I played the part everything would be just fine, but it wasn't.
All the pretending, and trying to fit into box that could never fit me made me ashamed of who I was. All the pretending made me believe that I was the problem, and that I was the one who needed to change. I went out of my way to avoid "being a burden" to other people because I bought the lie that that was what I was supposed to do. I spent my life feeling like an inadequate imitation of what I thought I was supposed to be. I tried so hard to be good at everything so that nobody would see that I was just pretending. I hated myself, because I believed that my disability made me less of a person, and then one day I woke up.
Over the past year or so, I've met tons of awesome people who've taught me that who I am is good enough. I've learned to stop listening to the lie that I am the problem. I've learned to fight for justice and equality, and to never let anyone make me feel ashamed of who I am. I took off the costume, and started to learn to stop pretending to be somebody else. I've learned that I am valuable, just as I am. I've learned that I am part of a rich history of awesome people who weren't afraid to take chances and to fight for what they believed in. I have learned to truly believe that who I am is not, and has never been a problem. I have found a place, a movement, and an identity that I can be proud of. I am no longer uncomfortable when people see me for who I am, in fact, I'm proud. I claim my identity as a disabled person instead of ignoring it. I see my place in this community, and I wouldn't trade that for anything.
Now, I'm learning, slowly but surely, that who I am is good enough. I'm learning that I am an awesome worthwhile human being because of everything I am, never in spite of it. I am learning not to apologize for my existence, because my existence has never been anything to apologize for. I'm learning to teach people why the way we think and talk about disability matters. I am learning to stop hiding, to stop pretending, and to just be. I am growing into a person that I can be proud of, because I took off the mask.
Today, I'm 23, and I still love Halloween, and I still love costumes, but I know now that costumes are temporary, and that the real me is better than any of them could ever be. That is the best birthday present I could ever ask for.
(image description: a young white woman with blonde hair in pigtails wearing a blue sleeveless dress with white polka dots, smiles as she looks down a purple frosted cake with a lit candle on it. The cake says, "happy b-day Karin in all capital letters. The words are written with white frosting. The hand of another young white woman reaches out over the cake, holding a clear plastic cup over the candle.)
