You Are Worthy As You Are: A Letter

Dear K,

Today you read your IEP for the first time after your mom went to your annual case conference. You read words that you could barely pronounce. You read information about yourself that you never learned in the first 11 years of your life. You are confused, and you are scared. You knew for years that something was different about you, but you never knew why. Reading the word disability attached to your name made you tense up just as the words physical, therapy, and braces have made your heart start pounding since you could first read those three words.

Before you let your thoughts get the better of you, I want you to read the words: you are worthy as you are. I know. You are only in middle school and you’re already insecure about your hair, let alone the idea of having a disability. In the world and time that you are living in, society doesn’t want you to believe that you are worthy as a person with a disability. Society wants you to believe that there is something broken about you. The world wants you to hate your body.

So it’s understandable that you hate the left side of your body for it’s inadequacies. It’s understandable that you get mad that your left foot won’t go up as much as your right foot. It’s understandable that you hold onto the belief that one day your ankle will just snap and you will be able to lift your foot all the way, so you won’t have a limp. I mean, even the Bible tells you that Jesus can miraculously heal people, so why wouldn’t he heal you?

By the time you read this, you already know you’ve been through a lot more than most kids your age. You can remember going to physical therapy, getting painful Botox shots, and wearing braces on your feet. As you think about how much more difficult your life seems than other kids you know, as you start to ask why me, I want you to read the words: you are worthy as you are.

You feel alone. You don’t think anyone can or will understand what you are going through as a child with a disability in a world designed for able-bodied people. I know you won’t believe this now, but it will get better.

It will be another 9 and a half years before you hear the word ableism, so it’s understandable for you to internalize ableism without even knowing it. At the time you are reading this, nobody is talking about disability on MySpace, on TV, or in general. You don’t have disabled people to look up to or relate to. All you can feel is shame and helplessness. I know you can’t believe it now, but it will get better.

So:

When you don’t make the soccer team at the beginning of 7^th grade, and you hate your body for not running fast enough, remember you are worthy as you are.

When you get cut from the soccer team on the first day of 8^th grade, and again you hate your body for not being able to run fast enough, remember you are worthy as you are.

When you have anxiety about going to soccer practice for the second time in one day because you know you will be the last one to finish the run; when you have to stop to catch your breath because the combination of your anxiety over running up the hill again and your exercise-induced asthma makes you start wheezing; when you start crying during your first official practice of your senior year because you are tired of always having to try so hard to be only half as good as the other girls, remember you are worthy as you are.

When you fail your driver’s test the first time, remember you are worthy as you are.

When you are scared about getting a summer job after your first year of college and you don’t get the one job you interviewed for that summer, remember you are worthy as you are.

When you find the folders with all the therapy notes, medical invoices, and evaluations from when you were little, remember you are worthy as you are.

When you see a presidential candidate mock a person with a diagnosis, and then that same candidate become president of the United States, remember you are worthy as you are.

When a man tells you that he’s “traveled to Africa and healed people who were blind and had other illnesses” by praying for them, and then asks you if he can pray for you because he noticed you have a limp, remember you are worthy as you are.

When you have anxiety over your senior literature thesis because you don’t think you’re as smart as the other literature majors, remember you are worthy as you are.

When you feel demoralized at the end of a school day during your first year of teaching because you weren’t the teacher you want to be that day, remember you are worthy as you are.

I’m writing to you during July which is Disability Pride Month. I know right?! Who knew there was a month specifically for people to express how proud they are of having a disability? Again, I know you won’t and can’t believe me, but it does get better. There is a whole community of people with disabilities who are fighting against the very evils in our society that are making you feel alone, ashamed, and helpless at this very moment. So many people on Instagram (you haven’t heard of it yet – it’s a website where you can post pictures and videos) have shared their own experiences of having all different types of disabilities. What’s great about this community is that even though we all have different disabilities and different experiences with having the same disabilities, we can all relate to one another’s experiences of people making us feel broken. Making us feel ashamed. Making us feel that because they didn’t see us as disabled, our feelings weren’t valid.

As I read other people’s posts about their experiences; as I see people – both disabled and non-disabled – posting about what ableism is and how we can fight against it; as I allow myself to be vulnerable and share our experience here on this blog – I cry. I cry because I wish you could experience this at 11 years old. I wish you could have the word ableism in your vocabulary and understand what it means, so that you could know it’s society’s prejudice against disabled people that’s fighting against you and not your own body. I wish you could see Emily, a model a little older than you who has cerebral palsy and wears braces, in the Target ads. I wish you could see Briella who is a model for Kohls and has cerebral palsy. I wish you could see and hear from Emily Voorde who worked on your future mayor’s presidential campaign and uses a wheelchair. I know. You can’t and won’t admit to yourself that you have a disability, and your internalized ableism tells you that you don’t have cerebral palsy nor do you use a wheelchair, so you are nothing like these three people. I just want you to know that you will not always feel alone.

I won’t say I’m sorry because I know you are tired of hearing that. I won’t tell you it’s okay because it’s not. I won’t tell you to be brave because that’s gross. While it does get better, it’s still not easy. It will take you another 10 years to start unlearning the ableism that is woven into every fabric of our society. And even now, I am continuously learning about what ableism looks like and how to be anti-ableist. I am still reminding myself:

You are worthy as you are.

Love,

The Empty Summer

Flips page. “[K] has been resisting/refusing to verbalize when attempting to get object nearby.” Flips page. “She is usually very adamant about not participating in an activity when she doesn’t want to.” Yes, two-and-a-half-year-old me! You are a strong, independent woman. Flips page. “Participation with therapist is sometimes difficult.” What can I say? I’m stubborn. “Goal: [K] will cooperate with adult requests 80% of the time.” Okay, that is a lot to ask of three-year-old me when many adults don’t cooperate with adult requests 70% of the time. Flips page. “She tended to be a little ‘stubborn’ with the staff today by raising voice and saying ‘no play’ when asked to say ‘Please’.” Laughs. Like I said, I’m stubborn, and I know what I want.

Five years ago, I could not imagine having these reactions to the pages and pages of detailed therapy reports. Five years ago, when I first found this ominous folder of report after report about every aspect of my development up until age five, my reactions were quite different. Five years ago when I went on my search to find just one document that said when I was officially diagnosed with mild left hemiparesis and instead found two file folders full of therapy reports, medical invoices, and evaluation reports, I could not imagine that one day I would laugh off these comments and admit that these tendencies were just an immature expression of my personality now.

Opens folder.

“Parent Concerns: Not walking independently. Says just a few words.” Eyes glaze over page. “Poor coordination of eyes. Concern about depth perception.” Heart starts pounding. “Recommendations: Speech Therapy. Physical Therapy. Occupational Therapy. Ophthalmologist. Developmental Teacher.” Face becomes flush. Flips page. “Demonstrating some tactically defensive characteristics.” Flips page. “Inconsistent sound play of limited phonemes.” Flips page. “She has trouble following objects in pursuit type patterns as her eyes don’t move quite fast enough.” Flips page. “[K[ is demonstrating a 7 month delay in her fine motor skills.” Muscles tense up. Flips page. “She demonstrates a reciprocal gait pattern, but proper heel strike absent… Balance appears to be compensated as patient must adjust for decrease in dorsiflexion while in swing phase and heel strike.” Googles ‘dorsiflexion.’

When I first went through that folder five years ago, I was physically frozen while thoughts gushed in my head: How could so many things be wrong with me? Why did they have to track every little sound, movement, and gesture I made? Do I still not articulate my words correctly? Can I not see in 3-D at all?

As the days passed after I read through every single therapy report, invoice, and evaluation report, I progressively submitted to those racing thoughts. At the age of 19 I began to internalize what the therapists had reported about my development from the time I was one and a half to when I was five. Remember when I said that I hated wearing the eye patch over my right eye in 7^th grade? Welp, I dug that eye patch back out and started wearing it to fix my depth perception. I began agonizing over the fact that my left eye appeared to wander outward.

Eventually these thoughts made me feel worthless and helpless. I stopped having the desire to make plans with my friends. I stopped wanting to interact with people, including my own family members. I have always loved playing games with my mom, but that summer I stopped finding the joy in playing games. I became more agitated with people. One day I snapped at my mom in DSW for the littlest reason and realized afterwards that it was not like me to get irritated with someone – especially my mom – for barely any reason. For the first couple weeks I just thought once I got back to DC, I would be back to my normal self. Since I wasn’t able to get a job that summer, I thought I just needed to get back to being busy again and I would forget all of these thoughts. Yet after almost a month, I realized that I didn’t even have a desire for going back to DC or AU anymore. At this point I started feeling a general sense of emptiness. I no longer cared if I slept at night, and I stopped having a desire to eat. Even just the process of eating sounded overwhelming.

I tried to cope with these feelings. I turned to books and read the entire Narnia Series and five of the Harry Potter books to try to escape my own thoughts. I fixated on The Fosters and watched the series three times that summer. I even bought a book called Everything Happens for a Reason to figure out why I was born with a disability. I tried to spend as much time in the sun as possible, but that didn’t help. One late afternoon I started crying for no reason as I lied on a beach chair in the sun and read my book.

During this month of feeling like my personality was gradually vacating my body, I could tell my mom knew something was wrong. She would ask me if I was feeling okay, and I would try to fake a smile and say yeah. One time when she asked me, I told her I was worried about the amount of loans that she and my dad were taking out to pay for my school, and I was considering if transferring to the University of Maryland would save money in the long run. I didn’t want to admit that something was wrong. However, after having thoughts about death a couple times, I knew I needed help whether I wanted it or not. One night I forced myself to find the courage to tell my mom that I was depressed. I was nervous the entire day. I even planned it out. I asked her to play a game with me after dinner. She said yes. After each round of the game, I kept trying to get out the words, but I couldn’t do it. Finally, after we were done playing and as we cleaned up, I got out the words: “I think I have depression.” She said she thought so too and seemed relieved that I had finally come to her about it. We then sat on the couch as I recounted how I had been feeling. She asked me if I knew why I was feeling depressed. I admitted that it was because of my disability. She responded by asking why I would be so upset by it now. I couldn’t admit that I had found my development folder. At that moment I already regretted admitting that my depression had something to do with my disability, so I simply said “I don’t know.”

The next day my mom scheduled an appointment for me to see the doctor. The day of the doctor’s appointment, I lied in bed that morning just wishing it would all end, but I reminded myself that in a few hours I would be getting the help I needed. I made a list of my symptoms in case I forgot something when I was at the doctor’s office. I had my mom come back with me to the examination room to help me feel more comfortable. The doctor asked me what my symptoms were. After I listed my symptoms, she said it sounded like I had clinical depression. Then she asked the question: “What do you think triggered it?” Unlike the conversation with my mom, I simply answered: “I don’t know.” But my mom said, “Tell her what you told me,” and I admitted that it “might be my disability.” Then the doctor asked us some questions about my disability and my mom explained that I’ve had it since I was born. They questioned why it was affecting me emotionally now. Again, I responded: “I don’t know.” The doctor wrote me a prescription for an antidepressant, and suggested I see a therapist once I was back at school. She said I would start feeling better by the end of the week.

The antidepressants at least seemed to make me feel less numb, and by this point I was only a few weeks away from going back to AU. I had something to try to look forward to, and I tried to focus on being back with my college friends.

As I write this post, I’m a couple days away from seeing the doctor about recurring pain that I’ve been having in my left leg for the past 7 months. Since January, I’ve been anxious to get answers about what could be causing the pain. I originally planned on seeing my previous doctor who has been great with checking on issues related to my spastic hemiparesis in South Bend over spring break, but since that was towards the start of the spread of coronavirus in Indiana, I was scared to make an appointment. Now I’m going to my new doctor in Maryland, and I’m nervous. While I want answers, I’m scared of what those answers will be.

During that summer nearly five years ago, when I thought I needed to and could fix my depth perception, I told my optometrist that I was worried about my left eye turning outward and I was worried that it was affecting my depth perception. He told me that while it was turning out a little bit, any surgery would simply be cosmetic and may worsen my vision. That was not the answer I was hoping to hear. I then found out that while he was examining my mom in another room, he told her that my eye was not turning out. I was shook. He lied to me. Me. Who had always hated going to the eye doctor and refused to admit that anything was wrong with my eyesight. Me. Who after 19 years had finally admitted that something was wrong with my eyes and was advocating for myself. He didn’t take my concerns seriously.

So today that leaves me scared. Will the doctor take my concerns seriously? Will she believe me? Then I think of how reading those therapy reports made me feel five years ago and the downward spiral that caused. What if it is something major? What if she refers me to physical therapy? What if I must have surgery? How will I react to that in the short term? In the long term?

“The thing about having a mental breakdown is that no matter how obvious it is that you’re having one, it is somehow not obvious to you. I’m fine, you think. So what if I watched TV for twenty-four straight hours yesterday. I’m not falling apart. I’m just lazy. Why it’s better to think yourself lazy than think yourself in distress, I’m not sure. But it was better. More than better: it was vital.”
― Tara Westover, Educated

The “I’m Sorry” Years

Middle school. For most of us these two words conjure up difficult, awkward, and cringe worthy memories that we wish we could forget. I must laugh at the reaction I typically get when I tell people that I’ll be teaching 7^th grade. Many people end up saying that middle school was the roughest time for them or that they were “so awkward” in middle school.

Middle school for me was a time of increased awareness and anxiety.

Gym class was always my worst nightmare in 5^th grade as that was the time when my physical challenges stood out. As part of a warm-up, we had to skip one lap around the gym. I hated skipping because I physically couldn’t do it. I couldn’t jump twice in a row on my left foot which was required for skipping. So instead of skipping correctly, I did my own version of skipping. I always ended up being one of the last people to complete the warm-up laps, which included jogging, karaoke, running backwards, skipping, and galloping. Sometimes I acted like I was tying my shoe and would skip one of the laps so I wouldn’t be so far behind. Some days I lied to my mom and said I felt sick, so I didn’t have to go to school because I just didn’t want to go to gym class that day.

During the time I was in 5^th and 6^th grade, more adults began asking the questions that classmates had asked me in elementary school. “What’s wrong? Why are you limping?” “What’s wrong with your leg? Are you okay?” To adults, I usually responded with, “Yeah, I’m okay. I was born like this.” To which they always responded: “Oh I’m sorry.” I never know when these moments are going to occur. One of my soccer coaches in middle school didn’t ask me about my limp until after our last game of the season. My 6^th grade teacher asked me months after the school year started.

In 6^th grade, I learned that I had a disability. After my IEP case conference, I read my annual IEP for the first time because I was curious. For the first time, I read words like “hemiparesis,” “craniosynostosis,” and “periventricular leukomalacia.” I kept these terms in my head. After learning that I had a disability and the name for it, I went to google for answers, but there weren’t many. When I searched hemiparesis, most of the results came back with sites for hemiplegia and cerebral palsy. But that’s not what I had.

While I found many YouTube channels and blogs by moms of children with physical disabilities – specifically CP – I couldn’t find a blog by a person with a physical disability. I hoped that if I could just find someone who shared the same experiences as me, I would feel better about myself.

Instead, I started feeling sorry for myself.

Going into 7^th grade, I thought that if I could make the school soccer team then I would feel better. But after only a few practices, I was cut from the team because I couldn’t keep up with the rest of the girls.

Finding out I had a disability in the spring of 6^th grade and not making the soccer team at the beginning of 7^th grade, made for my most difficult year of school. My self-esteem hit rock bottom. That year I didn’t play rec soccer in the spring because I was too scared. That year all I wanted was for my hair to be naturally straight because I thought that would solve my problems. That year I felt like the only people who cared about me were my friends.

In the spring of 7^th grade, I went to an optometrist for the first time instead of my normal ophthalmologist that I had been seeing since I could remember. The eye doctor prescribed glasses and recommended that I try patching my right eye two hours a day to help strengthen the muscles in my left eye.

I hated this. I tried getting the trendy frames to make me feel better about having to wear glasses, but that didn’t work. I still hated how they looked on me. Because my mom made me, I attempted to wear the eye patch for two hours a day after school. But I hated every second of it and took it off after only 20 minutes. I felt stupid. Inferior. After one of my sibling’s friends made a pirate noise at me while I was wearing the patch, I refused to wear it again.

Towards the end of 7^th grade, I sat in on my first IEP conference. During the meeting the school district representative asked whether I sat on the first or second level of the computer labs. I told her that I usually sat with my friends, so typically the second level. I thought that was a stupid question. As far as I could remember I could always easily walk up steps. I thought to myself “Why wouldn’t I sit on the second level if I wanted to?”

AND YET. She put in my IEP that I should be seated on the main level of any classroom that had two levels and I should be seated at the front of the class. There was no point in me being in that meeting if she wasn’t going to listen to what I said. (As I’m writing about this moment, I’m fuming because this still infuriates me to this day.)

8^th grade was a much better year. Although I didn’t make the soccer team again, I stayed on as a manager and made the best of the situation. I was the editor of the yearbook. I gained more friends and more confidence. Throughout the year I slowly began to accept that I had a disability.

That year in gym class, we simply had to jog for a set number of minutes as a warm-up. By the end of the semester I could jog a pretty steady pace for the total 12 minutes, and I ran a mile under 10 minutes for the first time that spring. I know that seems super slow to most of you, but that was fast for me. When it came to physical activities, I tried as much as possible to stop comparing myself to others and instead focus on beating my own self.

However, there were still moments that made me self-conscious because I still didn’t want people to learn that I had a disability.

In algebra class, the teacher told me I could take extra time on one of the tests if I needed it. Since I didn’t want to be treated differently, I rushed through the test and earned a D rather than taking the extra time and getting a better grade. I thought if I took extra time on a test that meant I was dumb. At the end of the year he had me take the ECA (End of Course Assessment) in the special education room, so I could use the extra time if I needed it. Again, I hated being treated differently than my peers, but it did make me feel a little better that another classmate took the test in the SPED room with me. It’s ironic because we ended up finishing our tests before the rest of the class, so we got to just hang out in the hallway and talk while we waited.

The difficult memories I have from those four years made me scared to teach middle school. But after working with 8^th graders last fall I realized I love the relationships that a middle school teacher can form with their students. Now I want to be the teacher that I needed as a 7^th grader. I want to make sure my students are given the opportunity to use their voice when it comes to their education. I want them to feel seen, heard, and represented. Most of all, I want them to know that they matter just as they are. I never want any of my students to feel as alone as I did during middle school.

In last week’s post I mentioned that children need to see themselves represented in the media and the people around them for children to believe that they belong in the world. On August 5^th, 2019 we lost Toni Morrison. Through her writing she allowed black people to feel heard. She empowered black people to speak up against the injustices that they face every day. She gave them the chance to be represented through her writing. Prior to writing this, I read a thread of tweets by a woman who said her black friend who was raised by a white family didn’t read a book by a black author until he read The Bluest Eye in college. According to the woman’s tweet, he told the class: “I didn’t know Black people could write like this” (@sjjphd via Twitter).

I will never know what it feels like to be a black person in America. But I do remember feeling so alone in middle school because my experiences as a PWD weren’t represented in the books I read, the movies I watched, or the blogs I could find on the internet.

Representation matters.

“I tell my students, ‘When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else.’”
Toni Morrison

The (Mostly) Forgotten Years

Of all my posts, I have a feeling this will be the most difficult one to write. I’ve struggled with figuring out how to write about the period of my life that I can barely remember.

I find it both frustrating and creepy that people who’ve known us since we were born know more about our first few years of life than we do ourselves.

Most of us don’t remember the day we took our first steps.

Most of us don’t remember the day we said our first word.

We don’t remember our most significant physical milestones.

Personally, I wish I could know what it felt like to be in the room when my parents received my official diagnosis. I’ve read several blogs/social media posts by special needs parents who explain what they went through after receiving their child’s primary diagnosis. I’m sure that my parents shared a lot of those same feelings. But I wish I could have been there to hear how the doctor gave my parents the news. I want to know the exact words he used to explain the diagnosis. I want to know the exact words he used to explain my prognosis.

The memories I do have of the first five years are consumed with physical therapy and medical procedures. Throughout these early experiences, I was not the “brave” little kid with a disability that the media enjoys showing at least once a week to make people feel better about their lives.

I hated getting fitted for new orthotics. One time my mom bribed me with candy so that I would be good and cooperate for the orthotist… luckily that time it wasn’t my regular orthotist and since I thought the new man was cute I gladly cooperated.

At night, I had to wear an AFO with a knee immobilizer on my left leg to stretch out the tight muscles in my calf until I was about eight years old. The brace forced my leg to be entirely straight. Just like the orthotics I had to wear during the day, I hated wearing it. Most nights I either went out to my mom to complain the brace was hurting me and sometimes she would let me take it off; or I would choose the sneakier route and just take it off once she left the room.

I hated going to the eye doctor and to this day I still prefer the dentist over the eye doctor any day. I remember going to the eye doctor and refusing to cooperate when they had to put eye drops in to dilate my eyes. My mom ended up choosing my glasses for me because I didn’t want to wear glasses at all, so obviously I was not interested in choosing a pair myself.

I remember getting my second set of Botox injections to help decrease the spasticity in my left calf. Honestly, I don’t know why anyone would choose to get Botox injections in their face of all places because that is the most painful injection. Shots don’t bother me now because in my mind, nothing is worse than Botox injections. Whenever I hear or read the word Botox, I just flashback to lying down in the doctor’s office and crying in pain as they injected the toxin directly into my muscles.

While these memories of the first five years are vivid, they’re also filled with the pain that I felt during that time. There was so much I didn’t know or couldn’t understand at that age. I didn’t know why I had to wear orthotics every day. I didn’t understand why I had to go to PT while everyone else I knew didn’t. I didn’t know why I had to wear a cast on my left ankle for a few weeks when my leg wasn’t broken. I remember another girl at my preschool asking me if I broke my leg because I had a cast on and all I could say is no because I didn’t actually know why.

In retrospect, I realize just how unhappy I was for a child that age because I couldn’t comprehend why I was treated differently than others. That’s why it frustrates me so much that I can’t relive these moments with the understanding and perspective I have now.

What’s most frustrating is that I don’t know exactly what caused the brain damage. My mom said the doctors told her I may have had a stroke (the most common cause of hemiparesis/hemiplegia), but the neurologist who confirmed my diagnosis wrote in the report that the damage was more consistent with a brain infection. As someone who constantly goes to Google to look up the answers to my random curiosities, not knowing the answer to the question of what damaged my brain will always bother me.

The most significant challenge with having a physical disability is typically not the physical impairments themselves, but the mental health problems that are caused by the stigma surrounding disabilities. While my disability affected me physically in many ways when I was younger (and still does to a lesser extent), this post highlights that starting at the age of 5 or even younger, I struggled with my self-image. I hated my body. I thought I was ugly because I had to wear braces. Later I will write a post dedicated to my mental health struggles, but I hope this post shows that while you may think the child with a disability is “inspiring” or “brave” simply because they are walking with a walker or leg braces, they may be fighting a much larger battle against their own thoughts.

I want to end this week’s post by putting in a prayer request to those of you who pray as part of your faith.

I follow many special needs families on social media, and one family I’ve been following for a couple years just experienced a major heartbreak with their daughter, Evanna. Evanna has a congenital heart defect that cannot be treated or cured with a heart transplant. Within the past year they traveled to Stanford twice to have two open heart surgeries that were meant to significantly improve Evanna’s quality of life. While both surgeries seemed to be a success, the family just learned that Evanna no longer has blood going to her left lung, meaning that only her right lung is supplying oxygen for her body. You can follow their journey on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theirvinehome/ or Instagram: @kierrairvine. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers. Evanna’s mom is specifically requesting prayers for guidance and peace.

“I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realises an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don’t have complete emotions about the present, only about the past.”
― Virginia Woolf

Why Asymmetry?

For those of you who know me, you are probably wondering why I used a term typically associated with math or science as the title of my blog. But asymmetrical is a fitting way to describe life. Life is not even. Life is not equal. When we’re excelling in one area of our lives, we’re struggling in another area. Life is not organized into equally designed parts. Life is messy and filled with asymmetries.

This title describes my life particularly well because from day one I’ve experienced asymmetry. The bones on the right side of my skull fused together too quickly leading to a condition called right coronal craniosynostosis. Although I had surgery at four months to correct this, my skull has never been symmetrical.

I have a disability called left hemiparesis which means the left side of my body is weaker than the right side – from my toes to my eyes. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more aware of these asymmetries. Since high school I’ve been self-conscious of the difference in the size of my calves. My right looks muscular whereas my left is scrawny. My second year of college, I started focusing on the fact that my left eye wanders outward, especially in photos and late at night.

Lately, I’ve been focusing more on the size of my calves than usual, which inspired me to start this blog. Once someone told me that I should go to the gym to build more muscle in my left calf. Oh, if only it was that easy. Once I had a guy on the street say to me as I was walking by him: “Hey miss! You need to pull that foot up more!” (I’m sorry but don’t you think someone who looks about 20 years old would walk like a typically developing person if they were physically able to???) Anyways, moving on. Within the last year I’ve been able to start shaving my right leg in the shower while balancing mostly on my left leg AND without holding onto the wall or a railing. THIS IS A HUGE DEAL FOR ME PEOPLE. Before this I always thought I’d have to hold onto something while I shaved my right leg. Once I realized I reached this milestone, I was super happy for myself. It meant that my left leg was the strongest it has ever been. But I felt there was no one to share in my happiness and celebration.

Moments like these, where I remember most people don’t know what it means to live life with this type of disability, motivated me to start this blog and share my story. I don’t want pity. I want understanding. Most of my life I’ve felt off-balance – often literally as balance issues come with having hemiparesis. As someone with a semi-visible disability, in certain areas of life I can blend in with people without disabilities, but in other areas I can relate more to persons with disabilities (PWD).

This won’t be a blog just about my life with a disability. As someone who loves reading, I will talk about literature and maybe even review some of the books I’m reading. As an English teacher and someone passionate about public education I will write about issues in education and maybe share some of my lessons that went over well with my students.

[My first few posts will summarize what my life has been like so far as someone with a documented disability, but after that it will be more random; some posts might be book reviews/literary analyses while others will be my thoughts on education, disability rights, faith, and other issues that are important to me.]

“No human face is exactly the same in its lines on each side, no leaf perfect in its lobes, no branch in its symmetry. All admit irregularity as they imply change; and to banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyze vitality. All things are literally better, lovelier, and more beloved for the imperfections which have been divinely appointed, that the law of human life may be Effort, and the law of human judgment, Mercy.” ― John Ruskin