Some people cannot learn. Others are ready.

After this past week, I feel the need to write from my heart.

I moved a lot as a kid and lived in many similar communities in the Midwest and East Coast. Each time I moved, I would review the life lessons I learned. Was I kind? Did I do anything wrong that I can try not to do again? I took those mental notes with me each time I started in a new school. I’ve tried to maintain that mindfulness my whole life.

When I moved in the middle of high school, I moved to a more diverse community than I’d ever lived in before. After getting a lead role in the musical, The Wiz, I suddenly had a very different set of friends. The experience kicked off the beginning of a new awareness. I understood how I had previously grown up understanding socioeconomic differences, but without racial or cultural conflicts. (Because my previous towns were insulated.) I had new perspectives, and I took those lessons to college. I started in a university that worked hard to introduce more diversity awareness. I was surprised to find so many college students had never talked about diversity before. I could have been one of those kids.

I am not perfect. I am not always aware of how much easier it is to raise my white children in this world. Having a child with a physical difference introduced me to a clear view that some people in this world have no interest in expanding their perspectives. People who are ANGRY that a child would launch a petition to American Girl and ask the company to consider a limb difference option. People who think my child should hide and not live a life that is active or challenge assumptions. I’ve learned that I can advocate and inform, but there will always be adults who have chosen to stay inside a very safe personal bubble that ignores how many people are different: including those with invisible and physical differences. A closed mind toward a limb difference is not a threat to my daughter’s life as much as if her skin was a different color.

I feel the need to write about differences and understanding. After this past week of violence and sadness in our country, I want to tell my black and brown family and friends that I love you. We have different life experiences, and I cannot fully put myself in your place. But I will try harder to listen, be aware and help advocate. Or just offer a hug when you need one. I am trying to raise kids who are aware we live in a country full of people who do not get to grow up in a house by a lake. I will help them learn history lessons beyond what they learn at school. I will continue to take them to different parts of our country so they can learn all kinds of new experiences. To help raise them as more conscious people, I will not stop learning. For example, I’m re-reading Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me. I’m taking a course on raising advocates this fall.

I’m going to step it up so I can help counteract those who are not willing to grow. I hope more people do the same. Let’s help our kids grow up a more aware generation.

EVERYONE is born just right.