Strength lies in differences . . .

I don’t remember a time in my life when I could go out in public without being stared at by any strangers I encountered. I don’t remember a time in my life where I could go longer than a week without somebody telling me I was inspirational or brave for taking on my differences I was born with or hearing how my parents must’ve been “saints” for taking on the responsibilities of dealing with a child like me. To this day, I have near-daily interactions with strangers who think it’s tolerable to stare, laugh, or make snide remarks under their breath based on my disability.

Throughout my 28 years on this planet, I have learned that my mere presence will always be something that turns heads when I walk into any room. The unavoidable difference of my body and the strangeness of the way I move and take up space rarely goes unnoticed or unaddressed. In the most crowded of spaces or spaces filled with void, I’m seldom granted the anonymity of simply being a face in the crowd. I am simply not designed to blend in, and people deem in necessary to remind me of this fact every chance they get as if they’re worried, I will forget.

I believed to the core of my existence that my differences were a problem that needed to be solved and that I was the one that needed to change. I spent years trying to fit into a coveted box that’s labeled as “normal”. For years, I kept playing this same game over-and-over, and still sometimes fall into it, but I got lucky.

I have slowly stopped wanting for my differences to fade away and disappear, and instead, have learned to demand the right to be seen on my own terms. I have stopped being ashamed of other people’s discomfort with my existence. I’ve given up the on the fact that I will not blend into the crowd. I am learning to fully take up the necessary space needed without apology, and tell my story, in my own words, and on my own time.

Instead of fearing the gaze and stares of others, I am learning to reclaim it. I am learning to proudly claim who I am, instead of trying to deny it. I know the power of owning the labels that were once used to make you uncomfortable in your own skin. I now laugh and call myself the things that were once targeted at me, because that’s who I am, and there’s nothing inherently wrong or bad about it whatsoever.

The greatest act of resistance is demanding to be seen when the world wants you to disappear. There is beauty in all of the things that make us different, and there is something amazingly beautiful and rebellious about embracing who you are.