Dear Body,

I love you because I severely dislike you.

At one point, I did not know if I would need a helmet to protect me from physically breaking a bone of yours. That is not my only bone to pick with you; it’s hard to swallow that everyday activities are challenging because of you: shoes, buttoning shirts, opening cans, etc., are taxing, but the younger me did not care about any of that: what I missed the most was sports.

Kids are taught to move their bodies from a very young age. Thus sports are encouraged. Signup sheets with a multitude of options are (sometimes)literally thrown their way.

Some are tossed in the garbage; some are run over to a parent or guardian as fast as Usain Bolt. Either way, as one of the only physically disabled kids in the school (that I could see), most people had a choice as to what they wanted to do with that sheet. I didn’t.

Before I even got the paper, my hopes and dreams of being on a team were crushed, like most tennis serves at Wimbledon, fast.

My feet actually did touch the grass of a baseball field, but only with the help of a “ball person” — yes, that is a play-on-words for a person who retrieves the tennis ball after it is hit into the net during a tournament.

I can’t participate like everyone else because My reactions are such I might get hit with the ball if I did not catch it.

Remember The saying “a picture tells more than 1000 words” (made famous by Henrik Ibsen, a Norwegian playwright)? When I was a kid, it told the whole darn story.

My reality was different than my classmates. My dreams, not. Like many people in my age group at the time, I wanted to be a professional athlete.

I still remember thinking a kid on my little league team would make the majors. Not only that, thinking he was Shohei Ohtani — arguably the greatest player in baseball ever.

This kid seemed to be as tall as the Empire State Building. The chances are not that high that he did make it (although my brain is pulling on every cell to convince me otherwise.)

The chances of me looking up if he did: pretty high! (insert laughing emoji)

Everyone and anyway who stepped foot on any field or court lived out a dream I could only imagine; however, one day, my physical therapist (PT) and I were practicing my walking and running speed.

I broke a personal record (I think it was 30 feet in 10 seconds) enough to convince my mom and PT that I should try my feet on the track team.

I practiced for about three days, running around the whole track once. My mom saw I was exhausted, and after the second day, she told my coach to take it easy on me. I probably did not run more than 30 feet in practice once after and quit.

So, I used the body of this article to moan and grown about my very own. How about I turn the eggs sunny side up — hopefully, that frown will turn upside down!

Now at days, I look at things from “the other shoe.”

Sports are about the team and the people who celebrate with you. No game-winning hit can compare to “lacing them up with my team, “trying to play the cards I was dealt and “tying the loose ends” that cerebral palsy hands me every day, and when I “lace them up,” one by one, we have won the Super Bowl.