(JULIE SAMPERS, 21, of Washington, D.C. is sitting in her wheelchair on a stage in a high school auditorium, speaking in front of a few hundred students.  She is slightly contorted with her head tilted to one side and her hands shaking mildly.  She slurs as she speaks.)

 

I wasn’t told there would be this many people.  That’s okay.  I’m not shy.  My name is Julie.  I’m twenty-one years-old.  Nice to meet you, too.  Don’t be afraid.  I won’t bite.  Unless you bite first.  And don’t be embarrassed.  I get those looks all the time.  I’m used to it by now.  Well…I’d like to think I’m used to it.  It can still be hard for me.  Even after all these years I sometimes still can’t believe this has happened to me.  They said if I was born just a few years later, they could have possibly prevented the asphyxia and I’d be normal today.

 

They said I’d be normal.  But it is today and I feel normal.  I may not look or sound normal to you, since my body’s shaking and my speech is slurred, but when I look in a mirror, I don’t see myself the way you do.

 

(Slowly, her speech isn’t as slurred and the shaking stops.)

 

When I look in a mirror, I see a young woman with dreams like any young woman would have.  I’m still going to school and when I graduate, like most of you, I want to have a career.  I want to fall in love and get married.  I even want to have children.  Sometimes it really hurts when I think these things may not happen, but what would I do if I stopped dreaming?  If I believed I would never attain my goals?  I may as well stop living. 

 

I hope I can fall in love with a man who loves me for my mind and not this body.  Nature has played a cruel trick on me, giving me this shell that doesn’t work.  But what’s inside does.  It takes a special person to see past this.

 

(She stands and paces.  The slurring is completely gone.)

 

I have always wanted to dance!  And when I dream, I am dancing.  (MAN enters and the two begin to waltz.)  With a tall man who loves me…who would do anything for me.  And I would do anything for him.  In my mind it would be like one of those trashy romance novels I’ve read.  And that would be fine by me.  He would also say I dance divinely.

MAN:  You dance divinely.

JULIE:  Thank you.  You’re not so bad yourself.  (He kisses her and slowly exits.)  I’m going to school for biology.  I want to discover the cure for cerebral palsy, and someday you will hear my name on the news because I will be a famous scientist.  And if I don’t discover the cure, at least I’ll be remembered for trying.

 

I remember how scared I was when I first went to school.  Some of the boys teased me and the girls looked at me funny…like the way you did when you first saw me.  But in no time, this is how they saw me.  As normal as you.  The outside is for vanity.  It’s what is inside that counts.  Sometimes things can be so hard that I just want to give up.  But it’s when I want to give up when a little voice tells me to try even harder. 

 

(She returns to the wheelchair and the shaking and slurred speech returns.)

 

It may take me a little longer to accomplish my goals…my dreams…but I have the confidence in myself to obtain them.  And it helps when you have confidence in me, too.

 

You may see this wheelchair as my albatross.  I see it as my inspiration.  What inspires you?  What do you think is holding you back from accomplishing your goals?  What do you see when you look in the mirror?