Lip Servicing Charity Case.

Morning Everybody…

So last night on Speechless, JJ was invited to, not one, but two movie festivals highlighting his class movie.  Now, for a kid, getting into a festival isn’t out of the realm of possibility, but two, is a little far-fetched.  Two in the same week’s a miracle.  Anyhoo, they fam goes to the first, and JJ ISN’T the only crip there.  In fact, there’s a whole gaggle of them with different cripnnesses.  JJ learns that it’s more like a charity case festival.  Furthermore, his movie HADN’T EVEN BEEN SEEN!  Obviously, he’s like WTH!  Oh yeah, and Maya, in her misguided way of “helping” JJ, instigated the whole thing with one of her undercover calls.

In the second festival, the venue WAS NOT accessible, AND people HAD watched JJ’s movie AND LOVED IT.  Come to find out, Maya had NOTHING to do with that judging.  OK, JJ’s just won an award, but the theater was LITERALLY up flights of steps.  What to do, what to do.  The MC takes the fam around to the garbage loading ramp for JJ to go in the back way.  From there, the door to the theater’s too narrow for JJ’s chair, so they carry him to the stage, and help him stand to accept his award.  All’s well that ends well.

I’ve brought this up before here.  WE HATE LIP SERVICE AND FEELING LIKE A CHARITY CASE.  So, when JJ leaves the first festival, I TOTALLY get him.  As crips, it’s HARD for us to not have our chairs proceed us.  SOME people just want to GIVE us stuff whether we earned whatever.

OK, who wouldn’t mind JUST getting stuff, right?  Pick me!

BUT, at the same time, I want to EARN my accolades.  Unless it’s my birthday or a gift-giving holiday, I want to know I WORKED MY ASS OFF to get what I have whether it’s truly work or having to go somewhere to get something needed done or whether it’s something someone else might consider trivial.

 We always get stopped by someone, who sees us, complete strangers, who gush all over that we’re married, that we live on our own, that we have fur babies, that we own our house with no one living with us, that we work, that we go out, that we…you get the point.  We get it, we’re different, and TRULY, thanks for acknowledging us, we really appreciate it.  But, at the end of the day, we’re just living our lives…like everybody else…just sitting.  We just want to be liked for WHO we are, not WHAT we are.

Just thoughts…thanks again, Speechless.

Be good to each other.

-J-