Morrison’s Space: A DeafBlind Activist

May 26, 2026

By Morrison

Some evenings, riding the bus home from work, I feel that familiar tension in my body, the one that shows up before I even sit down. I never know which driver I’ll get, how they’ll “handle” me, or whether they’ll treat me with basic respect. I wish it were predictable, but it never is. Each week is a different experience all over again. Some drivers don’t know what to do with me. “Hello, hello?” Some tell me to move, even when I have a right to the disabled seat up front. They’ll grab my wrist to “signal” me to move. Sometimes that seat is cluttered with the driver’s personal stuff, bags, jacket, lunch container, things that should be packed away in the cubby above the seats but aren’t. And there I am, forced to sit in the row behind, reminded once again that access and dignity is never guaranteed, even when it is supposed to be.

It brings me right back to when I was a kid.

And it is not a great feeling as an adult.

Growing up in the 80s, the short bus, that little mini yellow school bus, was its own kind of PSA. I hated riding it. Everyone knew what it meant, even I as a young kid knew. The regular kids got to ride the big yellow school bus to the local school – less than a twenty minute ride; while those of us on the short bus were sent off to a school out of district where it felt like a journey to get there. Those rides could last an hour, sometimes two or longer. And every year, you never knew if you would have the same driver or a new one. You never knew the type of misfits who would be riding with you.

I still remember the kindest bus driver I ever had. He treated me to candy every time I got on the bus. I adored him for his kindness and care. He made those afternoons feel a little less heavy, a little less like being singled out, especially after a day of being bullied. Then one year he was gone, replaced by this raggy hair woman who drove the bus with her son on it. I hated her son and didn’t like her. He picked on me and she didn’t care to notice. I dreaded that entire year on the short bus. Between him and the mean kids at the school, I fought my mother every morning not to get on the bus and go to school. Little did she know… “Have a beautiful rainbow day.” she would say as the door closed – trapped once more on the bus that goes round and round.

The next bus driver wasn’t any better. I got an angry driver who would curse and yell at us if we weren’t quiet so he could listen to his radio. Imagine being a kid and knowing the safest thing you could do was stay silent, but wanting so much to just be free – act out… Hoping the ride ended soon. To be controlled in the morning, after a day in school, then again for a long ride home.

These rides were torture. I never understood how or why they mapped out their route the way they did. Who decided the routes, and why? Picking us up at one end of town, then heading across the other end of town to pick up the next kid. In between, it’s picking up a kid here and there, and then the next. After school it would be the same all over again, a trek to another town to pick up another kid, and sometimes we would have to wait for them, even in the mornings. Then another school in another town to pick up a different kid. The ride felt so long, and it was. Then they would drop those kids off, and I was always the last one to get dropped off after being the first to be picked up. Stuck on that bus first in the morning and again in the afternoon.

I hated the bus. (And still do).

To this day, many kids with disabilities are stuck on these buses for hours to and from school. It is not right. It is not humane. I would leave school at 2 and wouldn’t get home until 4. I would have only a short time to play or watch cartoons to decompress before dinner. When it was time to do homework, I was exhausted from the day and had no brain power left. That is another tale for another time.

The short bus for misfits, the ride we don’t have control over.

Disability Justice Frame: What’s the point of this story?

What strikes me now, as an adult with disabilities riding the bus, is how much of this I never actually outgrew. I hoped I would. I hoped adulthood would mean predictability, respect, and drivers who knew what to do, or at least cared enough to try. Heck make the ride feel shorter by getting us to the designation sooner. But here I am, decades later, still dealing with different drivers every week, still not knowing who I will encounter or how they will treat me. Still being told to move from a disabled seat I have every right to use because the driver’s personal belongings are piled there instead of stored in the cubby where they belong. Still being forced to sit behind, still being managed instead of supported, still being treated like an inconvenience instead of a person. Having no control of how long the ride will be… or who may sit next to me when I just want the row to myself.

And every time it happens, it brings me right back to that short bus.

Right back to the feeling of having no control.

Right back to being sorted, silenced, and pushed aside.

The point of this story needs to be told where it shows that the system carries on its habits. Those habits, the trends, the patterns still remain – unchanged.

Because disability justice is not just about ramps, policies, or compliance checklists to meet the bare minimum. It is about understanding what we endure day in and out, not just as kids, but as adults who are still navigating systems that were never designed with us in mind – and still is not. It is about naming the ways these experiences stack up over a lifetime and the impact it has on us (within, too). It is about recognizing that the harm doesn’t disappear just because we grow up and “get used to it.” Drivers may change, be different, people you’re riding with will always be different, but the experience is something that will remain unchanged.

When people hear “short bus,” they think of childhood.

But for many of us, that experience never ended…

It just followed us into adulthood, onto public transit, into workplaces, into medical offices, into every space where (safe) access doesn’t exist to evolve.

Telling this story is a way of saying, “We notice. We know. We remember. We endure. But when will this truly change?” This is not just a memoir… It is a lesson to learn from, to pay attention to the everyday injustices disabled people face, the ones that seem small to others but shape our entire lives. And the point of this story teaches what we live through, what we carry, and what still needs to change that hasn’t after all these years – even with the ADA in place.