Is That Possible?

I had a great experience today.  I had the opportunity to visit the neighborhood where I used to live during graduate school. My favorite extracurricular activity during those years was to go to this amazing movie theater right down the street from where I lived.  I loved it so much because it is the only movie theater in  suburban Chicago that gets every independent movie you can think of. I love independent movies  they usually speak to me more. In about 15 months of living there I'm guessing I went to about 40 movies.

I had it down to a science that if I left my apartment 17 minutes before the movie was supposed to start I would be able to get in a seat in the theater right as the trailers began. The most interesting and adventuresome part of the 17 minutes was  going up the escalator in my wheelchair.

If you would have asked me four years  prior to living in Evanston if I could go up an escalator by myself I would have told you heck no. 

Sometimes though peer pressure is exactly what the doctor ordered to change a belief for the good.  I was a freshman at the University of Illinois and we were trying to catch our flight at O'Hare. Everybody else on the wheelchair basketball team was taking the escalator and I had no clue how to do it. I had to figure it out quick because no one was going to take the elevator with me.  Many attempts over the next couple years would not have won me many style points but they got the job done. I'm not sure where that turning point was but at some point I became proficient and escalators became  a preferred tool of movement in airports, train stations and my favorite movie theater.

At one point towards the end of my time in Evanston my friends Adam and Therese came to visit and we saw a movie.  As we were leaving the movie theater using the down escalator a lady on a cell phone using the up escalator stopped her conversation in mid-sentence and said rather loudly "Is that possible!"

A 19 year old version of myself  would have said that it is impossible.  Many others have seen some of my maneuvers as impossible or dangerous.  However I ask that we broaden Snoop Dogg's wisdom.  "Don't put limits on your life" or other people's!  If you see somebody in public do something that is out of the ordinary chances are they have done it before.  Politely offer help or offer a silent prayer of encouragement, but please restrain from comments of discouragement.

I promise you anything is possible especially when you are willing to eat soup with a fork.

God Bless

Chris