Just the Beginning...

Saturday, August 6, 2022 marked 3 months of being married. I realize for some that 3 months is merely a blip on the marriage spectrum, but I believe each month should be commemorated. I truly never believed that God had marriage in His plan for my life; of course, I always had a little hope and wishful thinking, but my disability always had a way of grounding me in reality. I have always had a firm hold on reality, maybe at times too firm of grasp. In essence, reality was my zone of protection; if I kept my my mind and thoughts in reality, I didn't allow myself to hope and dream of things that were not humanly possible for me to achieve. For example, if I allowed myself to dream of becoming a pilot, I would be crushed because reality tells me that I have no use of my limbs.  Yes, I realize that there are probably opportunities that I have missed because I have not dreamed bigger, but yet I have spared myself from a lot of disappointment and heartache too. 

In late August of 2017, I was just finished teaching an online six week session of English Composition for Ohio Christian University. I was looking forward to my two week break before my next class began; I didn't have any vacation plans, but I was excited for some downtime. During this time, I decided to rejoin a website called Dating for the Disabled. Several years prior, I had been a member of the site, and I had just used it for connecting with other disabled people. I never paid their membership fee so I didn't have full access to the functions of the site, but I had enough access to enjoy the site. In August 2017, I decided to allow myself two weeks on the site to get to know some people, just for kicks and giggles. After all, I was not interested in anything serious. My strategy on the site was to talk to people who lived far away from Iowa, who had severe disability and who didn't share the same interests as me. Of course, I was aware of the possibility of profile lying; however, I was very cautious and kept all interactions casual and vague. 

My first contact was a guy from Wisconsin who had severe MS and smoked pot to manage his symptoms. While Wisconsin was a little close for my comfort, I decided to talk with him because he fulfilled the other two guidelines (severe disability and no common interests, especially with the joint smoking). The potential for anything serious developing was nil in my book. He and I talked most every day of those two weeks, and I did learn more about MS. I felt sorry for the man because as a youth and teenager, he had been a school football star, and he was now living with his dad, fully dependent for all cares. On the  final day of my two week vacation, I received a message from "Skip" from Tennessee; I politely responded to Skip and really didn't think I would hear back by the end of the day.  Within a hour, Skip replied, introduced himself and explained a little about his disability. I once again kindly responded and told a little about myself. He then sent me a chat invitation, so I accepted thinking that there was nothing to lose by talking to him. 

One of the first things he told me was that he was just getting over a two year relationship. I found this to be good news for me because I thought that he probably just needed a friend at this time. Our first chat went very well, and I decided to extend my use of the site and be that friend to him. I was extremely cautious and didn't provide him with any identifying information. From my profile, he knew my location (Iowa) and my age (36). We chatted every day for over a month, and I kept looking for inconsistencies or character flaws, so I could find a reason to stop talking to him.  It wasn't that I didn't enjoy the friendship, but it took a lot of time, especially when I was grading 20 plus narratives each week. I didn't want to ditch Skip just because I didn't have time; I thought for sure he would not trust women again if I bailed on him. And then the day came when he asked if we could chat on Facebook rather than the dating site because his membership was expiring (he was one of those paying members who had full access to all of functions of the site).  I was very hesitant about moving to Facebook because my Facebook profile had my real name, which Skip did not know. To him, I was Cwheel18, although he had been questioning about my name for the last few days. Secondly, if he was a paying member, I knew he was looking for something serious, and I was merely on the site for conversation and casual friendship. I kept delaying the move to Facebook, hoping to find some reason to cease our friendship. The reason never came, and talking to him became part of my daily routine. One evening he finally said that he wouldn't be able to talk to me the following day because his subscription would expire and he didn't have the money to renew. I decided then to reduce my Facebook name to CS, so we could continue chatting. I explained that I would continue with our friendship on the conditions that it remained a friendship and that he would not fall for me. 

One month of talking faded quickly into several months of talking, and one hour of chatting each day turned into multiple chats each day. I was constantly on guard looking for a reason to end the friendship, but at the same time I became more open and real about myself. In December 2017, we transitioned from online chatting to the telephone. It was during our calls that I could tell he was falling for me and fast (I will admit that I too was sliding down that path a little), so I decided to go on defense in hopes of protecting him from disappointment and heartache. I began throwing all the ugly truths about my disability at him, trying to paint the "real" picture of me.  Beforehand I had shared bits and pieces of my disability with him, but I didn't give him the whole picture. Perhaps if I had said, "I can't move anything; I eat through a hole in my stomach, and I drool like Niagara Falls every day" from the get go, I would not be playing defense four months later. However, every nasty detail that I threw at him, Skip aka now Chris took with stride and grace. It was at this point that I knew my defensive plays were failing, and my barriers of protection were also beginning to crumble. 

My remaining ounce of protection was the distance between us; Tennessee is not next door to Iowa. We could probably arrange to meet some year if we continued our friendship, but I knew the statistics of long distance romantic relationships; it was something that I was not interested in experiencing. At the end of January 2018, Chris requested permission to come and visit me in Iowa. I was dumbfounded, excited and nervous all at the same time. By this time, I was friends with his mom on Facebook, and we had been chatting as well. She verified and reassured me that Chris was truly a genuine person. As a final ditch effort to give him a way out, I unleashed my final defensive weapon;  I told him about my constant need to use a suction machine to suck up my excessive spit. Like the rest of my defensive mechanisms, this weapon too was a dud for Chris. 

I will finish our story at a later entry, but I find it interesting that for probably the first year of our relationship I was busy reinforcing my walls and looking for holes in his character. When Chris came into my life, I had felt my disability had progressed to the the point of burden. Hence, I believe that with each loss of ability, I built my wall stronger. My disability never allowed my life to be easy, so I persevered with God's help. 

So February 2018 Chris was on his way, and I was waiting with my walls intact (for the most part).