Two of the most powerful things you have.

I wish I could tell you it isn’t true, but I can’t.

You will have to fight for this.

In every week that is like how this last one was,

you will have to grit your teeth.

In the weeks when all the ordinary tasks feel ten times harder for you,

you will have to make a choice.

You either let the difficulties win,

or you pick yourself up.

On the days when you call your mom crying,

saying over and over:

“I hate being disabled,”

you will have to hang up the phone

and leave that sentence there.

You will have to decide not to let it run circles in your mind.

I wish I could tell you it isn’t true, but I can’t.

You will have to fight for this.

On the early mornings when you wake up and your whole body hurts immediately.

When you’re sitting on the edge of your bed,

staring down at the floor,

knowing you’re entering the familiar battle that nobody else sees.

The one that happens when you’re alone and

your pain is at its worse.

You will have to force yourself to make the choice you don’t want to make.

You will have to make yourself walk into the gym,

get on the treadmill,

and try to be thankful for every step you take.

Even when it hurts.

Because you know there was once a time

when you couldn’t take them.

I wish I could tell you that it isn’t true, but I can’t.

There will be weekday afternoons at the office

and mornings on Sunday

where you will find yourself fighting

to make sure.

No matter if it’s the “right” or the “wrong” thing to do

you will find yourself doing all you can to make sure

no one can see that behind your smile

 your usually high pain tolerance

is failing you that day.

You will find yourself doing all you can to keep up,

to not let it slow you down,

to block out how it hurts,

keep going,

and not think about how much it sucks.

I wish I could tell you it isn’t true.

But I can’t.

More importantly though,

the thing I’ve learned that I need you to understand is

when the pain you’ve lived with your whole life is flaring,

when you come home to chores that shouldn’t feel hard but they do,

when you find yourself stuck in the ways you feel alone in it all,

the first thing to go will be your perspective.

You’ll wake up alone in the apartment you only dreamed of months ago,

and you won’t see how amazing it is that

you’re standing there on your own.

You won’t see how amazing it is that

you’ve kept it all up.

You’ll only see the ways being by yourself makes it harder.

You’ll bypass all the work you put in to get there.

For a blip in time,

you’ll forget every bit of that.

On days and weeks like these,

you’ll only see the ways the crutches on your arms

make you stand out.

You’ll feel exhausted by trying to explain it,

by trying to make sure you make enough jokes,

so nobody else feels awkward around you

or those crutches.

On days and weeks like these,

you’ll forget for a second

there are friends you can call.

You’ll forget you once told your best friend

that the best thing about your friendship

is the fact that next to her,

you’ve never felt disabled.

On the days where all you see are the crutches in the mirror,

you’ll forget that some people haven’t blinked twice.

You’ll forget that it doesn’t count you out.

I wish I could tell you it isn’t true, but I can’t.

I wish I could promise it’ll be easy,

that this won’t happen every once in a while,

that these low points are a thing you’ll only face once.

But I can’t.

You will, 100%,

have to fight for this.

The easy thing to do would be to not.

To just throw in the towel.

The easy thing to do would be to let the sadness stick around when it comes.

But if you fight for this,

if you fight to hold onto your perspective,

I can promise it’ll get better.

I can promise you with every low moment you find

and every unexpectedly hard week that finds you,

you will walk out of them feeling stronger.

Because you felt the ways it was lonely,

you felt the ways it was hard,

you felt the ways it was unfair.

But then you made a choice.

A choice to get back up,

a choice to see the ways this hard thing can’t take your joy,

a choice to keep going.

A choice to remember:

this isn’t a sad story.

I wish I could stand in front of a younger me

and tell her those things.

Prepare her for what’s coming.

But I can’t.

 I can though

be proud of the way I’ve fought.

Fought to keep my perspective after the low moments,

the ways I’ve been honest with myself when I’ve needed to be.

The way I’ve always come back from a hard week.

I wish I could tell myself that life with a disability is easy,

that I won’t have weeks where I hate it,

or days when I question it all.

But I can’t.

All I can confidently say is

there is power in choice,

and leverage in perspective.

And every time I’ve found that,

every time I’ve fought myself to make the hard choices

or choose the perspective that isn’t as easy to find,

it’s been more than worth it.

I wish I could tell you all the hard stuff isn’t true.

But I can’t.

All I can tell you is

choice and perspective,

are two of the most powerful things you have.