You should stop trying to get new people to see the real you and start appreciating those who already do – that’s what I learned today 🙂

It’s 8: 46 PM on day 245 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, feed myself a chicken hotdog for breakfast, tweet and Facebook about my Clean Water For All Campaign –no luck – feed myself rice and curry for lunch, tweet about my campaign some more – wow the power of prayer never ceases to amaze me @bonuschief (Frank) made a donation – thanks God and Frank 🙂 – feed myself an orange for dinner and brush my teeth once more.

Today I was reading In the inner circle, there’s no “weird” by Ellen (see excerpt below) – an American mother who has a son with Cerebral Palsy – and I realized that whenever I met new people I was trying to get them to see the real me but no more if you can accept me in the rapper that I’m in then I’ll welcome you with open arms if not, don’t let the door hit you on the way out. Do you try to get new people to like you or choose to hang out with people who already do?

I have been thinking a lot lately about how people see Max. This is not simply because I want him to fit in, so to speak. I ache for people to look beyond his disabilities and see the charming, funny, smart, complex kid I know. I want them to see Max, all of Max. Not just a child with cerebral palsy.

Then I got a grip: In the special needs community, there is no such thing as weird. For the people at the programs we go to, the teachers at Max’s school, the therapists in his life: quirky is the norm. I may have a ways to go to get the world at large to see the wonderfulness of Max. But in the inner circle of special needs that we inhabit, he is who he is—and people usually adore him for it.

Are we connecting on Twitter? If not, say hi at http://www.twitter.com/nisha360

if you’ve given to my cause or you can’t give now, please help me by sharing my cause with others. You can tweet about it like my friend Stan Faryna. This is the tweet he uses: @Nisha360 is a brave, smart young woman trying to make a better world for us all. Please help her do an amazing thing. http://bit.ly/hC7vOu

Stan’s very sweet for saying so, but feel free to write what reflects you best.

Thanks to all my friends out there who are helping me make my dream come true: to make a better world for all of us!