I use a chair, and the walkup is the thing that ends these

I use a wheelchair. In this city that is not a medical fact so much as an architectural one, and it has ended two arrangements that were otherwise working, both times because somebody lived on the third floor of a building with no elevator and there was no version of that we could solve.

Forty one, Manhattan, six years in. I am independent, I work full time, I travel across the city daily and I do not need help with any of it. What I need is a door I can get through, which turns out to be the harder ask.

So I will say it plainly at the top. Ground floor, or an elevator that is genuinely reliable, or we are going to have a difficult conversation in the second month. I would rather have it now.

What I want is a long arrangement with structure and duties, and I want to be clear that I can do them. I cook, I handle all the household admin, I am the person who remembers everything. My usefulness is not diminished by the chair and I would rather that were assumed than discussed.

What I do not want: to be anybody's first experience of disability, in the sense of somebody who is going to be careful with me. Ask me practical questions, plan around real constraints, and then treat me exactly as you would treat anybody else, which is what both of those arrangements got right and why I was sorry to lose them.