I have to say that I do not get this blog post at all.

Dave, who is in a wheelchair, has been traveling. He's had to deal with a lot of inconveniences and he's happy to be home where he's been able to arrange things more or less to his comfort. And he wrote an earlier post to that effect. Really, anyone who has traveled has been relieved to get home, right? But one of the disabled people who read his blog didn't care for that post and has called him on the carpet for not realizing how privileged he is; she does not have a shower stall, and so forth, so apparently he should not mention his comforts and should not take pleasure in them. I'm sure I completely misunderstand this because I really do not get it.

I started reading the infertility blogs a few years ago, wondering as I did so why because I easily had the one kid I wanted. (I think it was because I missed her so much when she went off to college and I had to work through that. No one has empty-nest blogs; apparently everyone else is happy to get rid of their children or is much more stiff-upper-lip than I am.) There I learned about something called the "pain olympics". How dare you complain about your five miscarriages, I have had eight, and so forth. (To their credit, the bloggers recognize the poison there and try to avoid it.) And that some people seem to feel that others need to hide their happiness at pregnancy and childbirth because it makes them feel bad; even infertile people who have struggled for years to have a baby, report feeling guilty about telling their infertile friends that their struggles have finally borne fruit and try to push down their happiness so that they don't cause pain to someone else.

One understands that one must be sensitive to others who are in pain, of course, and refrain from hurting them needlessly. But life goes on and we make the best of it, and take our pleasure where we can. Right? Finding small pleasures and enjoying them is one of the things that make life worth living. And when others find a moment's satisfaction in some thing they have or do, we rejoice with them, right? Dave's extra wheelchair in the bathroom is not taking anything away from anybody else. I wish he did not feel the need to explain that it was given to him by someone who couldn't use it anymore.