Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body

by Rebekah Taussig

At the same time, my body is constantly reminding me: this system was not made for us. My body is exhausted, stretched, strained, worn down by the speed and pace and particular demands of being a Full-Time Working Woman—in regular ways most of us feel, but also in the ways unique to my specific disabilities. I’ve lost mobility since I started this job. I’ve developed a cyst between two vertebrae in my lower back that has invited new levels of pain and spasticity in my body.

Exhaustion is a real thing as much as I try to fight it.