Thanks very much for your offer! I’m wondering if maybe you’d like to respond to the following in the form of a guest post on my blog? You have my e-mail address!

I’ve actually been thinking a lot lately that I wish I had an adult with CP whom I could talk to. I’m curious to know what CP feels like. What happens when you try to do something your disability doesn’t allow? Does it hurt? Does it feel like your body has a mind of its own? Is there just this invisible barrier that your limbs refuse to cross?

I try to explain it to myself a number of ways, but I think it would be best if you wouldn’t mind telling me in your words. (In my own life, I only know small children with CP.)

I think of it like me trying to shoot a basket (I’m terrible at it and most things sports-related): sometimes in a great while I can shoot it in, but most of the time my body just doesn’t do what I tell it to.

But then, I think if I practiced really hard, I eventually could shoot baskets. So what’s the barrier for people with disabilities? What does it feel like? Sure, you’re never going to be an Olympic athlete (neither am I), but why do experts say around age 7 is as far as CP kids are going to develop when athletes and dancers and other people who work on their physicality seem to peak in their 20s? I just have a hard time believing that we are so different — indeed, I don’t really think we are….