I wrote and rewrote this a hundred times. I tried narrative style, third person, first, a letter to myself and none of it came out the way I wanted. "Tell us a true story about something that impacted your life (and helped shape who you are today)." Well I've tried to tell that in a story format and it hasn't happened how I wanted so I'm going to do it a different way, I'm going to tell this in an essay format.

So a true story about myself? The day I was born would be the start of it. I was born in February of 1997 and I weighed two pounds and ten ounces. I was born four months premature and if you know anything about premature birth, it causes tons of health issues. My lungs hadn't fully developed, my body couldn't heat itself properly, I had feeding tubes, heart monitors, my own team of doctors and a cerebral hemorrhage. The first seven and a half weeks of my life were spent in the NICU of the hospital. I pulled through though, and so did my twin brother. Our parents were able to bring us home and we started our lives together as a family.

I had a rough entrance into life and it didn't get easier. When I was four, I was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. According to Mayo Clinic, CP is "a congenital disorder of movement, muscle tone, or posture" and is caused by brain damage before or at birth. On the list of the many things that were wrong with me when I was born brain damage received at birth was one of them. Both of my legs do not work properly. The Achilles Tendons in each leg are not only shorter than they should be, but are tight like piano wire. Those factors combined have left me with a limp and rather than walking heel-toe like the rest of the pedestrian population, I walk toe-heel. I fall over constantly because of that even if there is nothing to trip over in front of me. It also gave me muscle weakness (another factor that affects my balance). I couldn't even open the screen door to get into my house when I was a kid. My handwriting and other fine motor skills carry more resemblance to a five year old than to a young adult.

Many adults saw my condition my limping, lack of strength and fine motor skills with pity. I can see why, life is hard and it's even harder when you pile those difficulties on with it. Other kids didn't have to do physical therapy, other kids could run off wild and not fall behind. Other kids didn't have to wear leg braces with Tweety Bird on them. Other kids didn't make their classmates angry when they were leading the line and couldn't walk faster. Other kids didn't have to say "I had a cut in my brain when I was little" to try and explain why they couldn't do more than what they already were doing.

It made my early life hard and if it was bad for me I have no idea how bad it was for my parents. No parent ever wants to hear that their child was going to have it harder than they did. Mine did though, and if you were to ask me I think they handled it incredibly well. Rather than shelter me and try to protect me from the ridicule of my peers (which happened a lot because kids, simply, are cruel). They treated me like nothing was wrong.

Another mom might have kept me from joining Little League so I would never have to face the heartbreak of never having any success in it. Mine didn't, instead she showed up at every game, cheered for me and said just to have fun. Another dad might have bent down and picked me up after every fall because he knew how hard it was for his little girl to know she was so different and to scrap her knees so much. Mine didn't. Even if he was right next to me and I had tears in my eyes, he'd only look down at me and say "you're tough, you can hack it". If I wanted someone to help me get up, that someone would have to be me. Back then I wondered why he did that, now I know. It broke his heart to turn away and have me struggle to my feet alone but he knew it would help me in the long run. As much as he wanted to protect me and lend me his strength, he knew the day would come when he couldn't be there to do it and wanted me to be prepared for that.

Life is hard, I've said that a few times already but it's not any less true. Everyone has a cross to bare and everyone has hardships that life is going to throw at them. My first one happened to be cerebral palsy and frankly, it sucks. Plain and simple it sucks, it sucks to be a disabled person living in a world where most people aren't disabled. The world isn't built for people who have a hard time getting from place to place quickly, school isn't designed for students who struggle to take notes quickly and neatly. And that sucks, but I can't change it. I can't change that I have a disability, that's out of my control. However, I do have control over how I view my disability.

Rather than see that I limp, I see that I walk. CP can leave people in wheelchairs and here I am walking, yes I limp, but I can walk. Rather than seeing how pathetic my sports history is and get bitter, I laugh at it. I've had some incredibly epic failures, such as getting a gutter ball while bowling when I had bumpers on my lane. Instead of seeing how often I fall onto the ground every day, I see how often I get up again. And how, despite the many hands that offered to help me back up, I did it alone. I have cerebral palsy, yes and I will always have cerebral palsy. I didn't choose it and if I had been given the choice to have the disability I would have said no. That doesn't happen though, so I take what I can choose about my disability and I use it.

And so I choose this, whatever happens not only with my disability and how it impacts my life, but any hardship that comes my way. I'm tough, I can hack it.