Finding my way in the world..

Hi everyone! It has been such a long time since I logged onto my blog, almost three years! It's so bizarre to think that that much time has flown by, when yet so much, but nothing has really changed.. Since I last wrote, I finally graduated with my bachelor's degree in social work! So exciting right? I thought it would be, especially since it has always been a dream of mine since I was 5 years old. It was supposed to be the one thing that I always figured would make me feel the most able bodied I ever have, by being seen on an equal playing field through my academics, that's why I always did well, and nearly killed myself working hard in school. Only now, it's just a piece of paper and I'm back in the same boat I was before. I am constantly seeing my able bodied counterparts pass me by in career advancement, when the only true differing factor is that they're able bodied and I'm not. I went into a field where I hoped that wouldn't matter, but yet, it somehow still does. So the one thing that I always hoped would help me feel the most equal, doesn't.. I know that this whole equality thing is something within myself that needs to be worked on, and can't be solved through something else, and I've even sought counseling for it, but still, when is it going to be my turn where things finally don't have to be so hard? When everyday of your life is difficult, a person can kind of just get sick of it, and just wish they could start over, and that's unfortunately where I am right now. This past week I turned 31 years old.. I was excited to see my 20s go, and turning 30 was cool, but for some reason turning 31 to me is officially old. It is hard to realize that of almost all my social circles, I am the only one left who is single and who has no children. This is another thing where I always thought I'd feel the most able bodied, because if it was that I was able to have kids, I'd be THERE. There being the place with everyone else, because it would be taken seriously that I can literally do the same that the majority of all women can do in the biological sense, for once my body could be viewed as something that succeeded in the human purpose, and not as a failure. However, here I am, still with internal failure stamped on my soul. Still, I seem to somehow keep my head high, and carry on because that is how I've always fought through this life, and I know no other way, but sometimes I am just plain tired and have the right to feel down. No person should have to feel like they've been beating their head against a brick wall for 30 years, all just to belong. This past weekend I was called a "fat old hag" and for some reason that just really killed me. I know that it's not on me for someone to be a jerk, but it still hurt me, and was really hard to not internalize and wonder if really in some bizarre way they were outing why I was/am somehow alone. In my past I've had men tell me, "well your disability doesn't bother me, but..." as if really to hint or say it does/did... Leaving me to feel like my disability was disgusting and that I was ugly and always will/would be.. Many people ask me all the time why I love Austin so much, and it's because among many things, he gave me the gift of everything I have ever wanted in the previous paragraphs. My soul was the freest it ever was. He gave my the gift of seeing and knowing my own beauty and that I was unbreakable. For he told me once that that is what Dooley means, "unbreakable beauty." He gave me the gift of belonging and being needed, that I had longed for for 17 years, before he literally saved me from myself and from falling. To him, I was able bodied and perfect just as I was, I was always included, and if I couldn't be, he wasn't doing it. So, for 8 years, 3 months and 10 days, I was blessed to get to experience everything I had ever wanted. I mattered. Now that gift in who Austin was, and what he brought to my life are just a memory and a blip on the radar of this journey known as life as I have to travel forward as a strong but lone fighter, knowing that greatness can exist in your life, even if it does only for a short time, it can, it does, and it WILL, AGAIN.