Loud Mouth Brown Girl

When I was 11 years old, I was visiting my mom’s back then, best friend, Susan in Hinton Alberta.

One day my right leg started to hurt, to the point that I started to scream so loud they took me to the hospital. I learned I had tendinitis in my ankles, and that at some point, I might end up breaking one.

Well, here we are. It wasn’t broken, it was fractured, but it was bad enough that they had to put pins and screws and a plate in my ankle to keep it working for the rest of my life.

I am probably always going to have pain, but now I am looking at my disabilities much differently.

With depression, I get knocked down so hard some days I can’t clean, move, or even get out of bed. It hasn’t happened in a while, but I remember how bad it got.

With a physical disability, depression is a different beast altogether, and I don’t think I was fully able to conceptualize that until I lost an entire limb.

Mom said to me today “Now you know how I feel…” It broke my heart, because I haven’t been feeling that great.

However, no matter how shitty I am feeling my friends have been stepping up to make me feel better. If I’m in an old wheelchair that Lady S got me for moving around the house, or if I need help being wheeled up the ramp there’s D, there’s always someone somewhere willing to help me.

I am fully aware that this is not the average experience for someone with disabilities. I am fully aware that lots of times when people become disabled, their friends, family, and allies, fall away. Life gets in the way and people forget to check on folks.

But I also know that even though I will now be disabled forever…I also have a huge ton of support that most people don’t get.

It’s a strange place to be.

Growing up, I was raised to believe that no man was allowed to touch me without permission, but then when it happened, no one tried to explain to me that it wasn’t my fault, I was also raised to believe that when it happened to kept my mouth shut.

Today I have friends who say shit like “I’ll kill to protect you,” and who have just enough spirit to back it up because they know my story. And more importantly than knowing my story, they don’t think it’s too heavy for them to carry.

Between my neighbors, the people in my community, and my family, I am well taken care of, and well-loved. I’m learning what I can and can’t do, and allegedly, Home Health will be coming to help me with things I can’t do like cleaning and organizing.

I’m excited about this part of my journey and I Know that sounds strange to say, but given that I am now in a place I’ve never been before, I have so much to learn that I didn’t know I needed to know, until now.

The yucky part about this is that I have to cancel recording and producing Stay Lifted Sis until next year because I don’t know what my weeks are going to look like until I heal.

But unironically, I am okay with that, because as much as I believe in the idea of keeping my sista’s lifted, I also know that I just wasn’t feeling making a podcast, given what’s going on in the world today.

I needed a break, and while this isn’t how I wanted to get it, it’s certainly what I asked for.

So tl;dr, I’m okay friends, I love you for caring, and as much as this sucks, I’m taken care of.

Sending all my love,

Devon J Hall, The Loud Mouth Brown Girl