puppy.
You will probably assume that I didn’t notice your creative, on-the-fly problem solving. After all, people in wheelchairs have no social skills. But I did notice, and now all I can think about is how ridiculous it would be if you introduced yourself to everyone by patting their heads.
In the future, please consider utilizing fist bumps or tiny kisses on the cheek to greet me. I prefer a little tongue, but I won’t be picky.
Everything was so different than what I had grown accustomed to. In middle school, a bell rang at the end of class, causing an avalanche of students in the hallway as everyone raced to their next class before the late bell rang. The days of walking in single file lines, led by a “Line Leader,” were long gone. In elementary school, when the teacher said, “marshmallows in your mouth,” everyone had to pretend their mouths were full of marshmallows and got completely silent. In middle school, No one followed the “marshmallows in your mouth” rule anymore. Let’s be honest, the hallways of East Hills Middle School were not an avalanche; they were a chaotic clusterfuck. Decency was thrown out the window and replaced with screaming, running, shoving, book bag throwing, cologne abusing, and making out against lockers. I cautiously made my way through this chaos for the first few days of classes, but eventually even I lost my humanity in this zoo. Being the nice guy just didn’t work here. Patiently waiting for people to get out of my way in the hallway became old very quickly, and I started navigating my chair through the crowd with less regard for the lives of others. Many shins were permanently damaged at the hand of my merciless driving.
Another difference in middle school was that every student was given a spiral-bound homework calendar at the beginning of the year. Whether you wrote down your assignments was completely up to you. Only a year ago, I had been required to get a parent’s signature on a weekly homework calendar every night. This new freedom, mixed with my lazy but confident personality, led me to use my homework calendar a grand total of zero times, convincing myself that I could keep all of my assignments organized in my brain. Turns out I couldn’t, which I was forced to accept when I got an unbelievably crushing B on my first report card; social studies though, so in hindsight, who cares? I didn’t do the logical thing and change my ways to become a more organized and responsible person, but rather settled into a lifelong routine of half-assing school because I didn’t feel like putting in the effort to stay organized.
Middle school also presented the obstacle of making new friends, which scared me. Several of my closest friends from elementary school attended the same middle school, alleviating some of my stress, but I knew I wasn’t going to get through life with the same group of three or four people. Branching out felt like a step that everyone had to make at some point, but for me, meeting new people meant having more people who I could rely on to help me. Therefore, making friends was vitally important to my ability to function in society. Anything that is vitally important to survival will inevitably be stressful.
When you look like I do—a starving Ethiopian child with a balloon head who basically drives a robot—making new friends can feel daunting.
Here’s the scenario that I feared most: I’d enter new classes and be seated next to kids I didn’t know. They would feel awkward about sitting next to the kid in the wheelchair and would subsequently not want to become friends. Sure, I had no doubt that they would be decent enough to help me with things that I asked for, but that’s where our interaction would end. I would spend every day going to school being lonely and not talking to anyone. I would turn into a “loser” who had no friends. People would permanently view me as different and unapproachable because of my disease.
Maybe in a way,
You will probably assume that I didn’t notice your creative, on-the-fly problem solving. After all, people in wheelchairs have no social skills. But I did notice, and now all I can think about is how ridiculous it would be if you introduced yourself to everyone by patting their heads.
In the future, please consider utilizing fist bumps or tiny kisses on the cheek to greet me. I prefer a little tongue, but I won’t be picky.
Everything was so different than what I had grown accustomed to. In middle school, a bell rang at the end of class, causing an avalanche of students in the hallway as everyone raced to their next class before the late bell rang. The days of walking in single file lines, led by a “Line Leader,” were long gone. In elementary school, when the teacher said, “marshmallows in your mouth,” everyone had to pretend their mouths were full of marshmallows and got completely silent. In middle school, No one followed the “marshmallows in your mouth” rule anymore. Let’s be honest, the hallways of East Hills Middle School were not an avalanche; they were a chaotic clusterfuck. Decency was thrown out the window and replaced with screaming, running, shoving, book bag throwing, cologne abusing, and making out against lockers. I cautiously made my way through this chaos for the first few days of classes, but eventually even I lost my humanity in this zoo. Being the nice guy just didn’t work here. Patiently waiting for people to get out of my way in the hallway became old very quickly, and I started navigating my chair through the crowd with less regard for the lives of others. Many shins were permanently damaged at the hand of my merciless driving.
Another difference in middle school was that every student was given a spiral-bound homework calendar at the beginning of the year. Whether you wrote down your assignments was completely up to you. Only a year ago, I had been required to get a parent’s signature on a weekly homework calendar every night. This new freedom, mixed with my lazy but confident personality, led me to use my homework calendar a grand total of zero times, convincing myself that I could keep all of my assignments organized in my brain. Turns out I couldn’t, which I was forced to accept when I got an unbelievably crushing B on my first report card; social studies though, so in hindsight, who cares? I didn’t do the logical thing and change my ways to become a more organized and responsible person, but rather settled into a lifelong routine of half-assing school because I didn’t feel like putting in the effort to stay organized.
Middle school also presented the obstacle of making new friends, which scared me. Several of my closest friends from elementary school attended the same middle school, alleviating some of my stress, but I knew I wasn’t going to get through life with the same group of three or four people. Branching out felt like a step that everyone had to make at some point, but for me, meeting new people meant having more people who I could rely on to help me. Therefore, making friends was vitally important to my ability to function in society. Anything that is vitally important to survival will inevitably be stressful.
When you look like I do—a starving Ethiopian child with a balloon head who basically drives a robot—making new friends can feel daunting.
Here’s the scenario that I feared most: I’d enter new classes and be seated next to kids I didn’t know. They would feel awkward about sitting next to the kid in the wheelchair and would subsequently not want to become friends. Sure, I had no doubt that they would be decent enough to help me with things that I asked for, but that’s where our interaction would end. I would spend every day going to school being lonely and not talking to anyone. I would turn into a “loser” who had no friends. People would permanently view me as different and unapproachable because of my disease.
Maybe in a way,
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