Living with Cerebral Palsy and Intersectionality

“What advice would you give your younger self?” Love yourself first. I was brought up on “Jesus, Others, Yourself.” I'm still trying to rewire that. Throughout most of my life with CP, I have lowered my worth for your acceptance. I have put you before me. Being the child of an alcoholic and a drug addict only exacerbated that pattern because so much of my life was for and about my parents. It's happened in jobs, friendships, and relationships. Now that I'm a parent myself, my kids take center stage, and I'm still finding my space. I'm still trying to figure out how to love myself first. I'd give this advice to my younger self because it's a really difficult pattern to break.  It's taken me nearly forty years or so to develop the comfort to ask for the accommodations that I need and to advocate that people don't make assumptions about my abilities. That's not for a lack of words on my part. It's a lack of owning my space in life. I...

“Tell me a time you were terrified to do something, but you did it anyway.” The real answer to that is there's at least one thing every day. For instance, today's fears were walking on steps for a group photo shoot and making sure I didn't miss the photo shoot on my day off because I don't want to be invisible or have anyone think that I was unwilling to show up. I work really hard and being present for that was an acknowledgement of my efforts. On a historical scale, hospitals top that list.  I'm very uncomfortable and also very familiar in a hospital setting. When I was about eighteen, a peer and I went to the local Children's Hospital, a place I spent a lot of my childhood. A place that gives me trauma flashbacks to this day. Hanging out with this girl was confronting in a lot of ways. She was still involved with the Children's Hospital because she'd been through a major life event that they helped her recover from. I was terrified to walk...

What happens when my cup isn't full? What happens when there's more outputs than inputs? What changes when I get what I need versus when I don't? In my second to last album, I wrote two songs that pretty much have a polar opposite vibe. Beautiful Life opens with the following line, “I sang of redemption and the wounds of war, but never a hope like this before” (Tim Kellogg, “Beautiful Life”, 2013). It's oozing with hope and joy. That wasn't exactly the norm then, nor is it now. A couple tracks later on the same album, “Tattoo Me, Love Me, Boo Me” is a scathing indictment to some critics at the time. It closes with the title line, “Tattoo, love, or boo me” (Tim Kellogg, “Tattoo Me, Love Me, Boo Me”, 2013). I wrote these two divergent songs about 4 months apart. They illustrate what happens when I get depleted.  People aren't really used to me being a beacon of sunshine or energy for that matter. I'm not used to it myself. Frankly, it's pretty much my norm...

I spent my college summers on or near campus so I didn't have to go home and I went into debt doing it. The summer between my sophomore and junior year of college, saw three pretty significant events in my life in about the span of 3 months. In May of that year, right around the time school was letting out, my mom died. Around the same time, I'd fallen in love for the very first time, was getting my heart broken for the very first time, and was neck deep in a trauma bond stronger than anything I've experienced before or since. I was also celebrating a wedding not too long after my birthday. I was invited halfway across the country to a wedding for two friends, whose first date I accidentally crashed, due to another foundational experience in my life earlier that year. “We’re one mistake from being together but let's not ask why it's not right” (Metro Station, Seventeen Forever). This summer was unquestionably a catalyst that drove me to transfer colleges...

“My music's so loud, I'm swangin’” (Chamillionaire, “Ridin'”), maybe it was the winter dance in my first months of college, maybe it was the Midori Sours I got into, maybe it was the fact that my music was actually loud, and maybe it's just the way I move with Cerebral Palsy. I wasn't bringing intentional awareness to my Cerebral Palsy twenty years ago when Cerebral Palsy Awareness Month and Day (March 25) was coming into existence. I was two months into college, shooting pool, and drinking Midori Sours with the ladies.  I still had a little bit of sweetness in me back then. I was a long way from the days of whiskey neat. I was busy enjoying the freedom of college, even if it was an Evangelical Christian University where I had to sign behavioral contracts aimed at purity. Here's the thing about that time in my life, I wasn't talking about my Cerebral Palsy, I was mostly talking about Jesus, college life, songwriting, and what to do on Friday nigh...

I wore wide legged pants for years to hide my legs and most of my clothes in college were ministry conference swag shirts. The college student living off of nothing is a bit of a trope, but I hardly bought any tops for four years. I think I bought a Rolling Stones T-shirt and that's about it. I had so many free shirts with forgettable ministry brands, I can't tell you what most of the brands were. I was volunteering in youth ministry all throughout college to prepare for professional ministry after college so it fit the bill. Poverty was a bigger driver of my t-shirt wardrobe than anything else at the time.  When I look back at photos and videos from that time, I notice certain things that were just kind of in the background. The countless free T-shirts with a ministry brand on them, the free computer I used for most of college that had been decommissioned and refurbished, the fact that most of my monthly budget went to food, and that most of my college adventures were finan...