My changing relationship with my own potential

Something I’ve genuinely always felt within me is my potential. I’ve always had this pressing sense that I have it in me to do things that have impact.

When I was young, that gave me all sorts of lofty ideas for what I would be when I grew up. An actor or a signer, living on centre stage.

And every so often, I realized that other people saw it, too. My grade 6 science teacher, Mr. Duggan, told my Dad at a parent-teacher conference that I would run the world one day if people let me. It was the highest compliment he could have given my 12-year-old self.

When I had my accident a couple of years later, I think that sense of potential helped give me a path forward. That same sense of “delusion” told me I could still have the life that was planned for me, even if it looked very (very) different.

It’s what also pushed me to always go for more: the master’s degree in London, the job in a big multinational firm, taking up space in places that didn’t quite know what to do with me.

Well, that, and the deep-seated internalized ableism that refused to let me choose the “easy” and comfortable way out of anything.

Now, as I’ve settled into who I am as a disabled woman in my 30s, that potential is starting to look like my dreams for the future again.

I’m once again letting myself have big — perhaps lofty — visions of what I could be doing as I continue to grow up.

What’s more, I believe I can achieve them.

These dreams of writing a book and building spaces for other disabled folks and spending my days deep within my creative energy and immersing myself in community — they don’t feel out of reach.

And there’s this budding warmth in my chest that tells me I’m meant to pursue them. That I’m destined to fulfill them.

Things have always gone well when I’ve listened to that warmth and honoured my potential. So, I can’t wait to see what happens when I do that intentionally.