As a disabled woman, she looked to able-bodied men to prove her value. It wasn’t until her forties that she redefined beauty, ditched her own low expectations—and found the deepest love.
It is 1984, and, at 22, I’m fresh out of college, sharing an apartment in Brooklyn with two girlfriends. One of them has an out-of-town friend, Jay, staying with us, and I find myself thinking about sleeping with him. Jay has thick, curly hair and warm, dark eyes. He’s smart, funny and politically minded. And we have one thing in common that I share with no one else I know: We were both born with cerebral palsy. My case is milder. I walk with a limp that resembles someone favoring a sore foot. Jay’s gait is an elaborate dance of dips and twists. I imagine that if I were to lie next to him naked, we would gently touch each other’s tight limbs. He’d note, with recognition and affection, the difference between my thin, underdeveloped calf and my full, shapely one. I’d learn the places his musculature was uneven, and we’d talk easily about what living in our bodies feels like.Only I’m not ready for that close a mirror, that level of intimacy with my disabled self.
Soon after, I enter graduate school for creative writing and become entrenched in my work. My relationships with men are brief and casual. I find myself drawn to musicians and poets, all able-bodied.
It isn’t until I’m 25 and living in Manhattan that I meet another woman with cerebral palsy. Her name is Hope, and we connect instantly. We have rich, breathless conversations; in our own way, we are in love. But our love is platonic. In fact, I’m engaged to be married.
Richard* is unlike the artsy guys I usually date. He is an economics major, a jock, and he’s gorgeous. My friends say he looks like Bruce Springsteen. He’s the kind of guy who would have ignored me in high school. In those days, the boys I attracted were offbeat and unsexy: the class clown, the character actor in our school plays. But to the sought-after, attractive, athletic boys, even a pretty girl with a limp was invisible. Now Richard’s interest has me reeling: We get married despite the fact that we have little in common. His favorite way to spend the weekend is trying an extreme sport. We tell each other that our differences balance us. And it’s true that he stretches me in good ways: He encourages me to take skiing lessons and teaches me to ride a bike. In turn, I nurture a love of reading in him.
