Living with Cerebral Palsy and Intersectionality

Six figures of student loan debt.  Two degrees. Bachelor's in Biblical Studies. Master's of Information, Concentration in Library Science.  Estimated payoff date, After death.  ROI: Lifelong friendships that mean more to me than money and became a chosen family.  A lot of firsts – personal and professional.  The opportunity to leave home for the first time.  The chance to learn new skills in the student housing office.  The total exploration of my beliefs and values.  The enhancement of my critical thinking skills.  Learning the value of context.  Meeting most of the most important people in my life.  Learning from many incredible minds who I'm still linked to today.  The launching pad from poverty to something like privilege.  The gateway to my ministry career.  The rocket launcher for my library career.  The credentials that help me feed my kids.  I've looked at that debt as a burden and it's a...

“Damn the dark, damn the light,” my father was my childhood hero, when I was a teenager he said I'd hate him someday, and by the time he died that was proven right. To love and hate your own father is a trip. “Run in the shadows, damn your love, damn your lies, break the silence, damn the dark, damn the light. And if you don't love me now, you will never love me again, I can still hear you saying, we would never break the chain (never break the chain)” (Fleetwood Mac, The Chain). The chain was not only broken, it was smashed to bits. Before we get there we have to take a hero's journey of sorts, from the dad I adored to the dad I abhorred.  I went with my dad to nearly every methadone clinic visit as a child and beyond and he was there for almost all of my surgeries. I learned to play the drums on my dad's drum kit, starting at four years old. We would eventually write music together. My dad's story in short was that he was a hippie and a junkie who got ...

They say that time heals all wounds and I once sang that the memories fade. I don't believe that anymore. “I buried the feelings. The memories they come up. But now I see ‘em differently. Love is always love. That doesn't mean that it's enough” (Allie Colleen, Grass on the Grave). Sometimes you can never forget the things you want to and sometimes the wounds heal in a way that changes how you see the world. I beat to a different drum and I know that. I always have but it looks like I've changed sides when the truth is something different. Let me take you on a journey.  I'm a four year old kid whose normal is daily trips to the methadone clinic with dad, summers recovering from surgery for my Cerebral Palsy and other birth conditions, Sundays at the family Evangelical megachurch (with people who vote to defund Social Security and Medicaid benefits that I critically depended on for two decades). I'm like a lab rat in physical therapy between surgeries, a child of ...

I don't want to inspire you with my disability and success. I want you to hear me and rethink how you engage disabled people. I don't want to inspire you with the things I've survived. I want you to hear and rethink what it takes to live a normal life under abnormal circumstances. If you're inspired by me, I'm genuinely grateful and you've also missed the point. I've written over 80,000 words on disability and complex trauma in context to contextualize a conversation that needs to be had so people like me don't have to climb mountains to live an average life. My life's not fancy and most of you probably wouldn't trade your life for mine, and I'm beyond lucky to have lived an impossible and improbable life.  “If you got a dream, chase I it ‘Cause a dream won't chase you back. If you're gonna love somebody, hold him as long and as strong and as close as you can ‘Til you can't, ‘til you can't” (Kid Rock, ‘Til You Can't). For ...