I will never be fast enough. I will never be “able-bodied” enough. I’ve accepted that. It’s time the rest of the world did, too.

I was walking in the hallway at my high school in a long line of people waiting to get in the door. I was trying to go as fast as I could, but that is not a very impressive speed.

Two boys were behind me, and they were messing around while we were walking to the door. I didn’t want to be late to class, so I tried to increase my pace.

It wasn’t enough.

“Cripple,” I heard the boy behind me say.

“She’s like a vegetable,” the other boy laughed.

A vegetable is a person who is so severely impaired mentally or physically as to be largely incapable of conscious responses or activity.

I do not have any intellectual disabilities. I am ranked third in my class of almost five hundred students. I am enrolled in honors and college classes. I do have cerebral palsy, but it does not define me, or make me a “cripple” or “vegetable”.

I had tried to walk as fast as I possibly could. I’m just unable to pretend that I have no physical limitations.

And then I heard my friend’s voice. She inserted herself between me and the boys and told them off for what they had said.

“That was him!” one of the boys blamed the other one. It didn’t matter to me who had said what; it was incredibly cruel either way.

“You just keep walking, Ainsley,” my friend assured me. “I don’t see anyone ‘crippled’, do you?”

I shook my head, unsure what to say. My head was spinning, thinking of comebacks I would never utter, reasons why anyone would ever say these things to me.

The rest of the walk was a blur. My friend was beside me, which I was grateful for. “Thank you,” I told her. “Thank you so much.”

“No problem,” she said. “That was so incredibly rude.”

This experience taught me that for every hateful person in the world, there are so many kind people who do the right thing. My friends and family, and the people who love me, know my worth. They know that I am so much more than the way I walk.

The rest of the world doesn’t matter.

As I walked to my next class, I was reeling. But in the end, I won’t remember who called me a “cripple” or “vegetable”. I’ll remember how my friend was kind, instead of the people who were not. I’ll remember my friend, who stepped in and reminded me of what matters when I needed it most.

#MightyTogether #treatpeoplewithkindness #Disability #CerebralPalsy