The other night, Jana and I were in the kitchen together. I was sitting at the bar fiddling with my phone while she put dishes into the dishwasher; tidying things before masterfully putting  together a tofu-centered supper that this rabid carnivore enjoyed more than an earthquake under my least favorite college’s campus. We were chatting aimlessly about our perspectives on the election results, the blistered bottom Bama applied to my school’s football team that afternoon, evolving relationships with our friends, and this blog. As I have been posting stories, a poem (which is amazingly unlike something I would ever think about doing), and opinion pieces, I have been searching for the raison d’etre for the blog. Then, it hit me like a ton of orthopedic shoes. Right there in the header of the blog, the tag line I chose when setting up this blog had been staring me in the face the entire time.

“I take my easy chair everywhere I go”

That is it! That’s my unique view on the world. It’s something that shapes my existence every minute of every day, but it’s something I’m so used to that I rarely think about it. The catch is that even though I may not focus on it and the differences it creates between me and most other bipeds, it’s always there. Consciously or subconsciously, it has an impact on how I think and what I do 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

As Jana and I discussed my viewpoint revelation, she pointed out how I have a tendency to avoid conflict, and she was absolutely right. Arguing makes me extremely uncomfortable, and I’ll go 100 miles out of my way to avoid a situation that might result in a heated exchange. However, expressing my views on hot topics doesn’t have to be a call for a fight. When I post about our next president, for example, I’m not asking for you to tell me why you voted for him, or why you’d never vote for Hillary for whatever 14 reasons you had. All I’m doing is explaining why I, with my view on the situation which has been shaped by living my life from a wheelchair, did not vote for him. I want to show you why I made my decision using my filter on the world and hope that by doing so I can show others that while we made different choices, I’m not the enemy for choosing as I did.