I Hope You Dance!

On Thursday, I was blessed with the opportunity to celebrate International Persons with Disabilities Day along with numerous people, groups and organizations in the City of Lethbridge. What an amazing experience. The theme this year was: breaking barriers. When I was asked to attend the event as a guest speaker to share how I have overcome barriers with Cerebral Palsy, I couldn’t help but think that even though life has not always been easy, I seldom looked at my challenges as barriers. They were just things I had to deal with. One of the most important lessons that life has taught me is that barriers only exist if we let them.

There has been instances where I have had to be resourceful and innovative, simply because not every activity or building adapted to my physical needs. As a result, I had to adapt to my surroundings. If I am being completely honest, this was incredibly frustrating at times, especially with a brain that does not listen to my body.

While it did create an immense amount of frustration and at times pure anger, I am thankful for each one of the challenges in my life. Thankful because each one had its own lesson hidden beneath the surface. Thankful because even though some caused a great deal of stress at the time, they made for some hilarious stories later. Thankful because they gave me the courage and strength to keep pushing forward, even when the odds were stacked against me. Most of all, I am thankful because they motivated me to find a way to do the same activities as everyone else. Skiing was certainly not one of the activities on my list. It never crossed my mind that I would be flying down a hill in a sit ski.

Yesterday, I heard a song called, “I Hope You Dance” by Lee Ann Womack. The song embodies everything that Thursday was about. Despite the adversity that so many people that I met at the event have faced, they have chosen to dance with what they have. This is something that I found to be extremely admirable and quite frankly, inspirational. Even though I am not able to physically stand up and dance, my heart is always dancing. Being a speaker at International Persons with Disabilities Day and finishing my educational assistant degree were two things that made my heart dance this week.

What made you dance this week?