Georgia

“But that's the thing - outsiders lump kids with CP under the same umbrella, and that's another umbrella under the enormous parasol of congenital disorders, which sits under the gargantuan black canopy of disability. We're sorted into categories, but we can be nothing alike. I don't even mean how some of us are hemiplegic and others are paraplegic, or how some of us are spastic and others aren't, or some of us have learning disabilities and others don't. I mean on a perso al level, we're all different people.
That should be obvious right?
Camp Wigwah is where I realized my disability is like any other part of a person - eyes or ears or teeth or height - and that it's a variable. I have poor eyesight, and the muscles on my right side are tense threads that make my knees collide. But Karen Yuen's in a wheelchair, and Ali Sniridan spasms every evening.
I started thinking of CP as a part of me, and I stopped resenting it so much. It seems dumb to ask your eye color to change. An AFO isn't bad when you think of it like a pair of glasses. I love my glasses; they're one fashion accessory that demands no explanation.
That's how the space brace came about. Mom and Tamara were trying to make me love myself. But it's harder when it's someone else's decision.”
― Leah Thomas, Wild and Crooked