Dear World,

Dear World,

I want you to understand my disability doesn't define me anymore than the color of you hair defines you.  The only thing I have in common with other people living with disabilities is I also live with a disability.

I am not a child trapped in a woman's body . . . My mind is not that of a child. I am an adult woman. Living independently in my local community making my own choices as you do . . . 

The only time when I embrace child like thoughts are in my stories through my characters who are created to communicate adult concepts to children, concepts that a child can grasp but adults, perhaps through conditioning are prohibited for understanding.

I like most of my friends (yes! Despite what you think I have friends and the majority of them are what you label "normal") packed my toys away many years ago . . .

Well some people might argue I have only swapped the value of my toys, my pencils and paints just costs more than those of a child . . .

But my creations I call works . . . are not child like in nature . . . they are complex . . . 

Well thought out and placed to please the eye! 

And contain adult themes . . . 

My work only become childlike when I determine I want to play and experiment, to capture what I imagine to be child like joys . . . 

I am an adult, with the mind of a adult, living in an adult's body, I act and behave in an adult manner, I work like other adults, I pay my rent, taxes and other bills to like an adult, I engage with adults with other adults, I read adult books, ok so I read children's books too! In the name or research of course. 

So I see world some of the complex details of this I'd like you to know, are still beyond you.  So I will talk to you as a child and leave disability awareness to the kids! Because despite what you think kids get me!   

Debbie Chilton living with CP