Every person born with, or who comes into the experience of a disability embraces the experience and functions with it uniquely in a world increasingly geared to a pace that challenges even the most able of the able-bodied. Yet, clearly, some disabled individual thrive to a greater degree and find more satisfied personal fulfillment than others. This article is an exploration into, "why?"

I am a 43 year old woman who was born with Spastic Cerebral Palsy. My experience of this physical challenge has various twists, turns, highs and lows as an ongoing process of moving through each phase of my life from infancy through my school years into adulthood. As a child I had leg braces and walked on Canadian crutches. When I left home I walked everywhere I went, having not a car, nor the ability to drive, and I suddenly found myself stong enough to walk without the crutches and braces. More recently, the "middle-aged spread" has gradually brought me to using one cane to walk. While reflecting on my reactions to each phase, for me witnessing the changes in the response from the able-bodied world I move through has been even more interesting.
Psychologically, and as a foundation for intention I pretty much approach Life with a deal-with-what's in front of me approach. There is almost nothing I can't do, having set my mind to it, so long as I am willing to ditch any vanity about how I look doing it, and there is not a specified concern for the time in which I can get it done. I remember, with fond sincerity, a time when I was in college: A whole class full of us were parked on the floor outside the instructor's door. When the door opened for us to go in, I promptly began maneuvers to get up, which basically involved like a half-hand-stand. The resultant bird's-eye-view of my backside never even occurred to me until I heard a fellow lady classmate say, "Oh God, she's doing it again."

A work in progress