Lies

The truth is never popular. If you don't believe me, try living life with one leg. Try picking yourself up every day and telling yourself that you will survive the hours. Try pretending that you're just like the others. Try pretending that no one cares.

I dare you.

I don't mean you lucky stars who were born normal and healthy and lived most of your youth as a vibrant and beautiful human being but then later became maimed. I don't even mean those of you who may have been average in the face or a little bit pudgy. Those things are forgivable... as long as you look normal.

Actually, I was born as normal as the next girl. Cute little blond head of hair that later turned brunette. A real charmer. My parents struggled, though. My mother worked every day as a bank teller while my father finished his engineering degree. Harrowed and weary, they trudged home every day, trying their best to survive the meager beginnings of a couple who became parents too soon. However, they cared for me well. They loved me. In my tiny world, all was lovely.

Didn't last long though. A few months after my second birthday, a couple of neighborhood pre-teens stopped by the apartment. They asked if I could come out to play. They'd keep a keen eye on me, they promised. My mother, relieved by the thought of being able to cook dinner without having to keep tabs on a toddler, agreed. The screeching tires a few minutes later drew her attention to the street outside the kitchen window. Horrified, she saw my lifeless body lying in the road. I'd been hit by a car. The kid behind the wheel, who'd barely had his license a minute, allowed himself to be distracted long enough to not notice me darting into the road. (Later, the police discovered that the pre-teens had lost interest in me. I'd wandered off chasing after a black and white neighborhood cat named Oreo.)

Pleading to Jesus to save her baby, she went tearing out the door. They rushed me to the hospital and saved my life. There had been a head injury. That impact caused me to regress in my development. I had to learn to crawl again when I got home. That's when they noticed my right leg dragging behind me. More tests revealed some sciatic nerve damage that caused partial paralysis to my right leg. I made it through childhood and early adolescence with a leg brace, but the damage caused my leg to develop abnormally. The muscles in my lower leg failed to properly form, and my foot dropped. Sensitive skin made me susceptible to pressure wounds from the brace.

For the early years of my childhood, all that mattered was my family. My self-esteem stayed relatively intact through the praises proffered by my family and other adults in my life.

"You're such a brave girl!"

"An inspiration!"

"You're little Miss Sunshine! Would you look at that smile?"

Relatives and friends and even my father's boss doted on me, even more so when I spent weeks in the hospital or in spika casts. It made me okay with it all -- even the stares and rude questions from strangers.

The head injury didn't cause any cognitive damage, thank goodness. At least I guess it didn't. Maybe I'd be a Pulitzer-prize winning member of MENSA if the "accident" never happened. Maybe I wouldn't. Who knows? Nobody complained, though, because I always stayed at the top of my class in all of my subjects.

Then I began to notice my peers.