October 27th, 2015
30 Ideas About Community
Extend-A-Family Waterloo Region is talking “community” for the month of November!
In today’s Vimeo short, EAFWR’s Community Connector Kim Sproul shares some thoughts on why community matters along with ideas on how to build and join community.
Check out our previous Vimeo short, where Fertile Ground’s Angie shared with us her thoughts on what community means and why it’s important.
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I know an amazing woman who often refers to “BAM!” moments – simple, straight up, in-your-face kind of awakenings. They come in the form of Facebook posts and are short, brilliant insights that end with a great big BAM!
I’ve always been more of an “a ha!’ kind of girl….until last Wednesday evening.
When a rare free evening came along, I decided to join the folks at Open Space. The people at my table were welcoming and the get-to-know-you conversation flowed effortlessly. I loved sharing the story of how my husband and I decided to really roll the dice while on vacation in Las Vegas and eloped. I then heard of a lovely young lady’s plans for her upcoming wedding.
Blip.
That’s exactly what I felt – I had a momentary blip. Somewhere, on some level that I didn’t know was in me, I made a judgment about a person with a developmental disability being engaged.
While the blip didn’t last long, the lingering sense of shame for needing that blip remains.
Why should I have any judgments about anybody getting married? Frankly, my track record isn’t great. The guy that I eloped with in Vegas is my second husband – the first one was a dud. And in between No. 1 and No. 2 were a host of dudes who were duds.
A second marriage that took place in the most unconventional of venues (Elvis was there, for heaven’s sake) is met with less judgment that a person with a disability getting married for the first time in the most traditional of settings.
Love, lust, romance, heart ache and the path those feelings take us down are a road we all have the right to travel. In cases like mine, that road might need to be traveled a few times until we get the right route. For others, like the young lady that I met on Wednesday, she seems to have her course already perfectly mapped out.
BAM!
~Sally Sarachman, Opportunities Development Coordinator