“I really had no idea what it was like living with a disability until we became friends,” a friend from university said to me. I was driving us back to Auckland from Whakatane after we’d spent a week interning as

Maybe, disability isn't something to fear? Perhaps it is a beautiful form of diversity and creates individuals who are uniquely resilient and compassionate? I am disabled, don't take that away from me. And don't try to convince me it's not

Instead of letting the world turn me into a disability object I have insisted on being the subject in the grammatical sense: not the passive “me” who is acted upon, but the active “I” who does things… I find various

Right from staying in the hospital, I received messages that disability was something I should avoid identifying with; a paraplegic peer supporter told me they were dismayed at having to get a moon boot because they would look "even more disabled."

This is a love letter because these acts of inclusion are in sharp contrast to lots of what makes up the daily grind of being a disabled person. I call it love because it feels like the appropriate antidote to