We trick ourselves into thinking we can accomplish more by filling our schedules, skipping three meals a day and forgetting to look at the time.
The one thing we seem to miss during our frenzy, however, is the fact the clock doesn’t stop. It doesn’t slow down, either. There’s no turning the hands back so we can catch up. No wishful thinking. There’s only a race to make up for the time we’ve lost – or the time we have left to do something impactful.
My time as a student at Penn State Altoona was coming to an end. In that time, I laughed, cried, scratched and clawed to get to where I wanted to be, and where I was most comfortable. More importantly, I learned a lot – about myself, my cerebral palsy and how I wanted to move forward after I graduated. I knew writing was going to play a major role in my future – whether or not I had to fight for it.
I had never been as certain about anything else in my life as I was about this. With my new job as a columnist at The Altoona Mirror secured, I knew I was meant to write for the rest of my life. It had nothing to do with “good timing” or well-placed luck. Nor was this an idea that suddenly popped into my head and resulted in a knee jerk decision to even go to college. I decided to call my column “The View from Here” after tossing around many other possible titles. They all somehow tied in with my cerebral palsy, but sounded far-fetched or forced.
“The View from Here” fit like a glove. I wanted readers to feel as if they were sitting in my chair looking out into the big, vast world right in front of them. All of this was much bigger than any fantasy I could ever dream of. I finally arrived at a place in my life where I knew my disability had a purpose – more important than my own inner struggle with everything surrounding my circumstances.
In fact, it became clear things were slowly falling into place when I saw my name in print, in my local newspaper, for the first time when “The View from Here” debuted during my senior year at Penn State Altoona. Not only that, but I earned nods of approval from my news writing instructors on campus who also worked at The Altoona Mirror. Most importantly, I felt like I was beginning to earn respect as an employee. They not only started to see I took my job seriously, but I think they realized I paid attention to every word I wrote.
I started to gain validation from influential people, and it felt surreal. The message behind my column – it’s OK to talk to and interact with me – took a while to catch on with readers. I wasn’t shocked or upset, though. I fully expected it, but I also realized something else in the process.
I started to think about what I wanted my senior project to look like as graduation drew closer. Vivid thoughts of everything I went through to get this point – the doubt, the pitfalls and all the times I was told “no” – raced through my mind. Then I thought about the times when I didn’t believe or listen to all those things.
Where did that take me, and how could I put all of this together in one cohesive package?
I had so many ideas, but I wanted to leave my classmates and professors with a feeling of, ‘Hey, it is OK to talk about disability!’ So, I reached out to the same professor who encouraged me to use my disability as a platform for my writing. One e-mail led to another. And another.
In about a month, we came up with the idea of having a group of student actors sit in a circle around me on stage.
I had written enough material for my poetry class, my professor had it made into a booklet for my actors to read out of. As they read each poem, they continued to move in a circle around me. The delayed, almost forced movement represented my everyday struggles while creating the image of a broken down merry-go-round. The finishing touch to this production – the one that meant the most to me – was getting tangled in the pieces of brightly-colored ribbon, which each actor held as they read my poems. The ribbons got tighter and closer to my body each time someone took a turn. It became the physical manifestation of how I often feel about living with a disability.
We rehearsed all of this up until a week or so before the show. My professor and I were confident this was a beautiful way to end my senior year – and the right way to say goodbye. However, I wasn’t prepared for the flood of emotion.
Some things are good. Others might be great, but it’s what you make out of them that truly matters.
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