The earliest photograph of me was taken when I was three years old. Its surface layer, a muddled brown made of different colors, has been destroyed by rain. Underneath the colorful mixture, I am sitting in an inflatable giraffe float on our living room floor. The only part of me that is visible is my face, half-covered by the giraffe’s head. I am wearing a navy blue bucket hat decorated with yellow-and-rose-colored sunflowers on the side, my small curls sticking out in different directions from underneath the hat. My eyes are wide open, revealing that my brown eyes are actually light reddish-brown, as the flash of the light bounces off my pale face. Although the photo is of me as a child, it is that layer of brown that I identify with most.

Like the photo, my life is browned with a mixture of different colors. Tints of blues on the white canvas followed me through most of my elementary years as I realized how my disability differentiated me from other children. Using my mouth to pick up cups in order to drink was seen as funny, so I started using straws. Being fed by others was seen as strange, so I went home and learned how to pick up a fork. I was constantly being watched for the way I did things. Then, yellow suddenly splashed in. This was the around the time when I was visiting the hospital for being clumsy and for having to schedule surgeries.

Next, splatters of red fiercely hit the canvas during my middle school years. Don’t embarrass yourself. Look normal. Why can’t you be like everyone else? Every dayI questioned myself and was angry with the world. Among the splatters of red, the blue tints were still visible. “How does it feel when you take a step? Like, does it hurt a bit?” I asked my older sister on a hot summer’s day. She looked at me and replied that she did not notice how it felt. The very next week, I found myself crying as I was being showered. When my sister asked me about it, all I could think was that someone somewhere around the world needed my tears.

As I entered high school, a series of bright colors hit me all at once. Gold struck the canvas as I finally met a group of friends that took me under their wings. I flourished. I found myself laughing and having fun. Vaguely, but still there, a pink spot appeared within that gold. I found myself maturing in both body and mind. I learned more about myself. Scattered throughout the gold were sprouts of green, little ideas about myself that were growing. I really started looking at my differences. I also began to believe in myself. I started to see the world as it truly was: beautiful. As I was handed the keys to my dorm four years later, purple greeted the canvas. I became more independent and wiser than I ever was before. Difficult things that I never pictured myself doing, such as dressing myself, were becoming possible. For once, the impossible became the possible. I was opening my arms wide open inside and embracing myself saying out loud, “Different is good!” I realize now that I had been delaying the possible.

Like the photo, my life has been browned by my disability. It covered me until a variety of different colors found their way to me. Still, had it not been for that, I would have never learned about myself. I exist. I am here. My disability does not define me and it does not choose my life. I define my disability. I get to choose how I want people to view me and how disabled I really am. Taking a deep breath of fresh air, I pick up the brush in front of me, and I decide to start mixing more colors.