You are supposed to take up space

No matter how much I travel, I am always a little clumsy with my bags at some point. This was especially true disembarking a cruise for the first time while also: sick with a virus, on my period, recovering from being motion sick the night before, and simply being an ADHDr and Spoonie out in the world.

I often see myself as I think others might see me, and oh boy, imagine in that moment being stuck behind a red-eyed woman slowly carrying several very heavy bags, one of which keeps falling off of her shoulder so she is constantly pausing to re-adjust and she can never get it quiiiiiiiittte right. So it’s more llike a weird bag shuffle.

She also put her passport in the wrong pocket, so instead of just handing it over, getting it back, and moving on smoothly, she has to stop and look for it. Ugh.

I know, it’s the person you can’t wait to complain about, right? Same!

I was embarrassed, extremely apologetic, and also thoroughly exhausted. What made it worse was how much I tried to rush and berate myself because I was getting in the way; I was being “that person”.

After the passport thing (which, let’s be honest, took… one minute? MAYBE two?) the whole way down the gangway and then through security, in my head, I said “You are allowed to be slow. You are allowed to be inconvenient. You are allowed to take up space.”

That day I was, unintentionally, that annoying person who is inexperienced, slow, and under-prepared. And I realized that was ok!

It’s an experience that helped me take a lot more ownership of the fact that I have invisible challenges which I cannot and do not need to explain to every single person I may delay by a minute or two.

I care very much about being respectful, courteous, friendly, and apologizing when necessary, but I don’t owe ANYONE internal shame.