With all due respect, I’ll explain why I wrote those words:

One of my favorite people in the world — a mother figure to me — is extremely disabled and has been since her 20s. Prior to her multiple disabilities, she was an award-winning athlete, but an injury and a horrendous series of complications have left her on a medical merry-go-round for the majority of her life. Every time she travels, even just for a single overnight, she needs to bring a wheelchair, a glucometer with test strips and a lancing pen, insulin and syringes, oxygen, masks (even prior to COVID), and a whole pharmacy’s worth of medicines I don’t even understand. So traveling the way I describe is not possible for people like her. My comment about health privilege was my way of acknowledging the fact that I don’t for a second take for granted how blessed I am to be able to travel with lightness, flexibility, and ease, unburdened by any of those myriad problems myself. It was my way of reminding people like this mother figure whom I love very much that I see them and I care.

So, regarding your question of whether we can “talk like normal people” — of course we can. As a normal person, I care about others with disabilities. That’s why I said what I said.

I understand that if you don’t know anyone disabled, it might not have occurred to you to consider how health and ability impact your freedom, so the phrase “health privilege” might’ve struck you as strange. But now that you know, I hope you’ll keep it in mind for the future. Thank you very much for reading and for taking the time to think about it. :)