We all have a disability!

 'I remember a time I used to keep a perfect distance away from people with albinism. l carried the misconception that they were cursed'. This was a confession from a friend and just the other day one of my associates told me that he had found a group of children refusing to play with another because the color of her skin was different from theirs, she had albinism. We are so quick to isolate and judge people we think are so different from us, but are they?

At twelve years, children have already been taught to discriminate against each other based on nothing else, but skin color. I wish l could say that as we grow older society starts to accept these children that are seemingly different from others. Those with speech impairments, physical disabilities, hearing impairments but, that will just be a fallacy.

By the time most of these individuals grow older the society would have marginalized them in all the socio economic spaces. Society will teach them that the only place they belong to are pavements begging for change for the rest of their lives! Never hoping or working for better days, because they believe that it simply doesn’t happen to people like them. Many have accepted this, but there are always those ones who choose to shine way beyond their disability. By so doing, they inspire history to write tales about them. I have met three such women, but for the purpose of today's issue I will focus on one.

The conversation that l had with Tendai changed my life forever, l learnt two vital lessons. This woman made me feel so welcome around her that l began to share my life’s struggles. Boy oh boy, did l have a story to share? 

After my struggle with depression which l had overcame, l was left the total opposite of my old self. I lost my confidence, my brain was left damaged. I had convinced myself that only bad things happened to me, that the systems of the world were all conspiring to destroy me. If l wanted to send an application for a job, the laptop would malfunction that very day. When it finally got fixed, my data would deplete, and when l recharged it, there would be loadshedding, when the power finally came back, the applications would be suspended for some reason. Dramatic right? But this was exactly what l believed for a long time in my life! She then said to me that my luck didn't seem that bad, there l was talking to a woman whose voice l used to hear only on radio, tucked away in my blankets as a child, a face l used to watch on television and have the most wonderful time with my siblings, surely my luck or wasn't that bad. It was my first lesson that life just wasn't about luck or destiny,  but action. lt took me being bold enough to step out of my comfort zone to be there with her living my wildest dreams.

This brought me to my second realisation, I realised for the first time in my life that l had a disability of my own and unlike hers, mine wasn’t physical, my brain was crippled. lt dawned on me for the first time ever that we all have a disability and while some might manifest themselves visibly without any trouble, for example walking on a wheelchair or being blind,  there are always those ones no one can see. Those little things we tell our brains, like how we will never be good enough, how ugly we really are or how it is only the bad things in life that happen to us. We keep feeding into fears that have kept us stagnant for so long, always being afraid to go out into the world and try. 

Remember, every day brings a new opportunity to do better than you did the previous day, to walk out of your own shadows and to realise that the only unlucky people in life, are the ones that are dead!

The truth is we all have the strength to overcome our disabilities, like l did mine, like she did hers. So, the next time you think of giving someone a weird look whose disability is more obvious than yours remember you have yours too. 

Inspired by Tendai , Sukoluhle Mhlanga and Tariro Gurure, women that roar!