Day 53: Basketball Game Breakdown

My team ended up losing our first home game of the season when I went to the game earlier this week.  That was my first time being able to catch a game in person all season due to my surgery recovery.  I am a die-hard fan and it has nearly killed me not being able to attend the games.

Even though the basketball game contributed to pushing my ankle too far, I couldn't miss this game because it was our last regular season game of the year and it had championship implications.

I arrived to the game two hours early so that I could make sure I got in and got a decent seat, in a handicapped section, of course.  I went to the same section that I had sat in before and got situated.  A few minutes before the game started, an usher let all of these rude men sit in the other chairs in the handicapped section all around me.  I knew I wouldn't make it through much of the game with these men sitting so close to me on either side.

I then ventured off to another handicapped section that no one was sitting in at the time.  I got situated again and the game started.  A few minutes in, these people came demanding that I was in their section.  They said that they had tickets for those handicapped seats and were talking rudely about me being in their section.  Without approaching me and asking me to move, they started calling for a supervisor and literally went off the deep end when he came.  They insulted me and my character and even questioned my education.  All the while, I was only in that section because the usher permitted me.

It is hard to put the experience in words, but I felt like a second class citizen.  I had no option but to sit in the handicapped section, and I was being kicked out to yet another section.  I literally lost it, rushed out, and had a breakdown in the corridor.  The manager came and talked me into coming back and getting me a seat in another handicapped section.  Me, that was hours early, had now had to move for the third time.  If I wasn't disabled, I would have been in the first row of the student section cheering my head off, instead I was crying my eyes out over how I had been treated and the scene that was made.  I literally spent the entire game crying which was temporarily suspended when my team clenched a regular season championship.

I was down the rest of the day, and the weekend for that matter, yearning for the day that I would be able to live my life without a disability again.  Meanwhile, I am waiting, wishing, and praying that that day will come for me.