THE 2026 PROJECT, 52 SUNDAYS, 52 MONOLOGUES

Occupational Therapy
BY JEFFREY LO

ELIZABETH, a woman in her mid 30’s. She has a somewhat invisible disability in one of her hands from an accident a few years earlier.

She is at home, she is sitting and folding laundry. Earlier today she had an occupational therapy appointment.

She is clearly upset and trying to continue her work despite her emotions.

Her partner enters.

ELIZABETH
Hey. Hi.
…
Oh, I’m fine. Yeah. I’m –
The OT appointment went well. Yeah.
Ellie is so nice. It was good to see her again. She’s so excited for us. It was really nice.
It took so much work to get insurance to approve the OT sessions with her that it just feels good to finally get started.
…
Umm. I just had a hard time with –
…
I went into our registry and shifted some of the onesies we had requested to be short sleeve ones.
Yeah, not all of them but some of them.
Just because…
I was having a hard time –
A really hard time with… it.
The onesie. We practiced getting the onesie on a baby doll and it was really hard for my hand to do it. At least to get the long sleeves through the hand. It was…
I couldn’t really –
I mean, I did get it through eventually but it took a long time and that wasn’t even with a real, moving baby and…
Ellie was really patient with me and she was so helpful but…
She recommended we get a lot of short sleeve ones so I could do it.
And maybe we’ll just need you to do the long sleeve ones since –
…
                                                (Pause)
Sorry.
It’s been a really hard day with everything going on and then finally having this first OT appointment and feeling frustrated that I just couldn’t get it right away…
And it just felt like years ago, after the accident and I was in rehab teaching myself to walk again and use my hands again and…
I guess it sent me back to that dark place when everything was so hard.
And being in OT, trying to do these things with my hand…
…
It felt like what I was afraid of.
I’m just scared of – what I might not be able to do for our baby.
And I want to be able to do everything for him.
He deserves everything.
And there are just some things I don’t know if I can do with my hand.
                                                            (Pause)
People always say, “Oh you’re so strong,” or “It’s inspiring how resilient you’ve been through all of this!”
And it’s all very nice.
Everyone is being so nice but sometimes…
I don’t know.
I… I’m tired of being strong.
Sometimes I just wish I didn’t have to be strong. You know?
I wish I didn’t have to be resilient.
And I feel bad because I know –
I know that things could have been a whole lot worse but you know what?
They could have also been better.
A lot better.
And I’m probably going to feel better tomorrow and I’m probably going to be up for being strong and resilient but right now I’m just mad.
I’m mad that I went through what I went through.
I’m mad that I have to I have to live my hand with my hand being the way that it is now and…
I just wish I didn’t have to spend so much time on the phone with insurance.
And I wish I didn’t have to make a list of things I have to figure out how to still do with my disability.
And I wish I didn’t have to go to all these appointments and have shots twice a day.
AndAndAnd -
I just wish I could put a onesie on my son.
No problem.
I just want to be a mom.
…
I just want to be a mom to our beautiful boy growing inside of me.
I know it’s all going to be worth it.
But sometimes…
Sometimes…
                                                            (Takes a deep breath:)
I don’t know what to do.