Do you remember how I was recently excluded from a friend's birthday celebration because, in her haste (and tiredness) to get something organised, she hurriedly picked a restaurant in a very old building, up several steep flights of stairs, without a lift which meant the celebration was inaccessible for me?

I sat with that for a couple of days and then made a decision.

I use a stick when I'm able to go out.

My disabilities are hidden.

I'm not able to walk far.

I need to have places to sit.

I don't look disabled but a stick helps me feel steadier and gives me solidity as I move through the world.

I follow Selma Blair and Christina Applegate on Instagram and have been following their journeys as they adapt to life as disabled women.

They have the most beautiful walking sticks.

That reflect their style and look stunning.

My stick is neither beautiful nor reflects my style.

It is definitely not stunning.

I decided it was time to fully embrace my mobility aids and to incorporate them into my style in the same way a person chooses glasses that match their face and their outfits.

I decided it would be the last time I would be left out of an occasion due to my friends choosing venues that are inaccessible, because I shrink from making my mobility aids visible, and so people forget I can't access flights of steep narrow stairs.

I'm not victim-blaming myself. I’m seeing what I've done around my mobility aids clearly, and I don't want to collude in invisible-ing myself any more.

I love fashion and style.

I love maxi dresses, and boots, and black, and blousy biker jackets and beautiful leather bags, and smokey eye make up and the occasional splash of deep red lipstick when I'm feeling foxy.

But I don't love my stick.

I hate my stick.

For all that I talk about Divine Icons, and being sexy and disabled, I still look at my stick and hate that I can't stand en pointe any more (I studied ballet for 20 years) and I hate that using a stick is interpreted as a negative thing.

That people see the stick in such a way that it stops them seeing me.

So, I've tried not to draw attention to mine.

I've tended to fold it up and quickly put it away in my bag as soon as I sit down.

I would never do this with my reading glasses.

I love my large rose gold framed hexagonal reading glasses.

I love choosing gorgeous frames, and wearing them with the smokey eye make-up I also love.

It's been harder to love my stick.

So, after being excluded on Saturday, I searched online and found the English company that both Selma Blair and Christina Applegate buy their sticks from.

And I ordered one for myself.

It's beautiful.

It's made of resin.

It matches my style.

It has a small metal cuff around it that can be engraved so I asked for two of the things I love most to be engraved onto it: "Salt Air & Starlight".

I'm determined to tease out every last hidden bit of internalised ableism I'm carrying, and to carry my mobility aid with love and gratitude for it.

This has been a difficult hurdle to step over (ironically).

I haven't wanted for people to see my stick and then not be able to see me.

So I have carried shame.

I'm putting that shame down.

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My stick is currently being made for me and won't arrive for a while, but I'm in bed in a crash at the moment (the stress of having your hero dad going through a horrible life-threatening but also life-saving op will do that to you) so there's no rush.

I will post pics of my beaut of a stick when it arrives.

Mobility aids are like glasses.

Don’t hurt yourself by being ashamed of needing them to make your life easier.