Am I too young to begin writing a memoir?

OH WELL!

I can’t walk. It seems strange to me to start a novel out that way, but if you and I were meeting in person, I wouldn’t need to explain that, would I? It would be obvious that my legs didn’t work correctly by the yellow and black contraption that I like to call the Smooch (we’ll get to my wheelchairs’ names later on) which is what I use for all transportation. You’d know it automatically, so I feel that in this instance as well, you should know that I can’t, and never have or will be able to, walk.

Personally, I think walking is quite overrated. What’s so special about it anyway? You get blisters on your feet and I mean, everyone does it. Way to be original, 99% of the population. I totally just made that statistic up. Don’t take that to the bank. But yeah, walking. I never look at a portly man (or woman, if I’m being politically correct) climbing up the stairs and desperately think to myself, “Oh man, I’m super jealous I can’t struggle up those steep steps.” When it comes to walking, I don’t think I’m missing out on too much. Oh no, I can’t go hike somewhere or run on the treadmill or…you know, do things that require walking.

While walking is not something that I fiercely crave, there are things that come with working legs that I’ll occasionally wish for. I won’t ever surf or go ice skating or take a kickboxing class (to meet a hot kickboxer, of course). I won’t ever be able to perfect the moonwalk, though my moonroll usually gets a few rounds of applause. I won’t walk down the aisle at my wedding or walk my children to school.

But why let my “cannots” get me down when I have so many “cans?”

If you ask anyone who knows me well, they’ll tell you I’m sickeningly optimistic; my cup is half-full almost all the time. I feel that I was made this way, with screwed-up legs, for a reason. I’m not sure what that reason is yet, but I believe in it with my whole heart. Life really is like a box of chocolates, and I just happened to get the already bitten off, nasty chocolate that someone threw back because it tasted like excrement.