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Day 100

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. – Albert Einstein.

It’s 8: 03 PM on day 100 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, feed myself Puttu – [pronounced put] ground rice with layers of coconut – and Kadala Curry – made of brown chickpeas – for breakfast, tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign – damn it I HATE being ignored 🙁 – feed myself rice and curry for lunch, drink water by myself – I love doing the small things that other people take for granted because not so long ago I couldn’t do them 🙂 – watch TV, drink tea by myself, exercise for 10 minutes – all I can say is I’m glad that’s over talk about PAINFUL LOL 🙂 – and feed myself grilled chicken and baked beans for dinner

This morning began like every other beautiful South African morning until my father went on a rampage because my sister had forgotten to print something out for him he was spewing venom saying stuff like no one does anything to help me, you guys are so useless, without me nothing would get done and all I could do was smile and say congratulations daddy you do everything because I knew that someday I would get out of here and be free to live my own life. What do you do in the presence of negative people? 🙂

Day 99

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Gift – something that is given to somebody, usually on order to provide pleasure or to show gratitude

It’s 8: 16 PM on day 96 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign for a few hours – still no luck 🙁 I wonder what I’m doing wrong – feed myself grapes for lunch, exercise for 10 minutes –my almost dislocated my kneecap LOL 🙂 – and feed myself Whole-grain bread and grilled chicken for dinner.

About 2-3 years ago I was too broke to buy my mom a Mother’s Day gift so I wrote her a letter instead (see letter below) and as I watched her reading it with tears in her eyes it occurred to me that all anybody wants from us is to know that we care and with that said I would like to ask you to be frugal with your money and frivolous with your love this festive season.

Dear Mom,

I am writing you this letter because I know I would be too embarrassed say this to you in person. Every year on mother’s day I either forget that it’s mother’s day completely or I make this last minute mother’s day card that I don’t even like, but you smile and say you love it. This year I am doing something completely different I am writing you this letter detailing all the reasons I love you and why I think you’re the best mom in the world.

I tell you that I love a lot, but those three words aren’t enough to express how I feel about you and everything you do for me. I love you because you tell me you love me even when I tell you I hate you. I love you because you know what to say and what not to say. I love you because you hug me even when I am as prickly as porcupine. I love you because you’re always there when I need you and you give me space when I don’t. These are some of the reasons why I love you but, perhaps the most important reason why I love you is because you taught me what it means to be woman in this world.

Please know that I am grateful to God for everyday I spend with you. If you’re sure of nothing else in the world, never doubt that I think you’re the best mother in the world.

All my love,

Nisha

Day 98

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Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. ~ Elizabeth Stone

It’s 6: 01 PM on day 98 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, sleep until 12 PM – I didn’t get much sleep yesterday due to the fact that I spent most of the night with my head over a bucket puking my guts out – suspected food poisoning – don’t worry I feel a 100% better now it takes more than a little food poisoning to keep me down LOL 🙂 – finish writing and publishing yesterday’s blog post – I fully intended to publish it yesterday but I thought I would sleep for an hour, wake up, finish write it and publish it but the next time I woke up was at 4 AM this morning with my head over a bucket – suffice to say things didn’t work out exactly according to plan LOL 🙂 – and drink to glasses of tea all by myself – the next time you feel like vomiting drink black tea without milk and LOTS of sugar – it works 🙂

I had always thought that wherever happened to me affected no one else but me but yesterday as I was watching my mother hovering over my bed checking to see if I was okay I realized something that I will carry with me for all the days of my life – we are an extension of our parents and they hurt when we hurt – so to all the kids out there please know that whatever your parents do that is offensive to your sensibilities is done out of the best of intentions.

Day 97

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Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. (Proverbs 16:18)

It’s 5: 22 PM on day 97 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, feed myself Chapati – an unleavened flatbread – and beef curry for breakfast, spend some time with my cousin watching Cricket – a bat-and-ball team sport – it was the funniest thing my cousin was supporting India while I was supporting South Africa LOL 🙂 – tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign for a few minutes – still no luck 🙁 – feed myself curry and rice for lunch, go to bathroom by myself – if someone had told me that the greatest lesson of the day would be learned in the bathroom I would have laughed in their faces LOL 🙂 exercise for 5 minutes – SO much pain 🙁

Even though I’ve always needed help with the simplest of things I’ve always been independent of spirit which more often than not got me into to trouble as it did today – I was in the toilet attempting to grab the toilet paper to my right trying not fall and in that moment I realized that the only thing worse than asking for help is falling flat of my face and so I ended up calling my mother to come and help me out. Would you rather fall flat on your face or ask for help? 🙂

Day 96

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You bring who you are to everything that you do – that’s what I figured out today 🙂

It’s 8: 16 PM on day 96 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, feed myself All-Bran Flakes for breakfast, tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign for a few minutes –I wish I could say it helped and that somebody opened his/her heart and donated $1 000 unfortunately for me that didn’t happen but hey tomorrow is a brand new day 🙂 – go to the Hemingways Mall with my mother and sister – it was SO much fun I only hope that my dad won’t keel over from a heart attack when the credit card bill comes in at the end of the month LOL 🙂 – feed myself a chicken burger and French fries for lunch, drink a glass of Sprite by myself, go say goodbye to a family in our community who are emigrating to Australia – everybody was fine until we were about to leave then the sadness crept into all our voices 🙁 – exercise for 15 minutes –I was watching the movie Knowing starring Nicolas Cage while doing so I didn’t feel a thing a thing 🙂 – and feed myself two slices of Whole-grain bread for dinner

On the drive back from the Mall I remembered buying a charm bracelet in support of Activism Against Domestic Violence and wondered why opportunities to be of service seemed to follow me everywhere I went and it occurred to me that it had nothing to do with opportunity and everything to do with me – it didn’t matter whether I was at home or at the mall I attracted philanthropy. What do you attract? 🙂

Day 95

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“Don’t judge a book by its cover” – American Proverb

It’s 8: 39 PM on day 95 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, feed myself Chapati – an unleavened flatbread – and chicken curry for breakfast, tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign for most of the day – raised $65 –I don’t know if the people who made the donations would want me to reveal their identities so I won’t but I would just like to take this opportunity to thank them from the bottom of my heart – who knew people I’d never met would end up giving me the best Christmas present EVER 🙂 – drink a glass of Coke by myself – I didn’t even spill a drop I am SO proud of myself 🙂 – feed myself curry and rice for lunch and exercise for 5 minutes – the bones in my leg started creaking loudly so I stopped because I thought I broke a hip or something LOL 🙂

A few weeks ago we – my family and I – went to a party a few hours after we got there the guest of honour came to exchange pleasantries with me she said so what do you now and I replied I study and read a lot and she looked at me her eyes full of pity and said oh and in that moment I was so temped to tell her all about my philanthropic efforts because I knew that the look of pity on her face would be replaced by one of aw and amazement but then I remembered Matthew 6:3 – but when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing – and suddenly I didn’t feel the need to show her up anymore. Do you use what you do to make yourself look better in other people’s eyes? 🙂

Day 94

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Others will follow your footsteps easier than they will your advice. – Unknown.

It’s 8: 28 PM on day 94 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, feed myself Oats for breakfast, tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign for most of the day – still no luck 🙁 –help myself in the bathroom – the only part I needed help with was getting myself off and on the wheelchair – I’m SO proud of myself 🙂 – feed myself curry and rice for lunch and exercise for 20 minutes – I looked like an idiot doing the bicycle but I was having too much fun to care LOL 🙂

Anybody who knows me knows that I try not to live my life in judgement of others because I believe that those who judge are just inviting judgement on themselves but after watching the video of Miley Cyrus stoned out of her mind on Bong – a.k.a Stivia – I would feel remiss if I didn’t say that she has made a REALLY bad decision and in doing so has set a bad example for her legions of young fans around the world and with that said I solemnly swear NOT to take drugs, drink, smoke or have sex out of wed-lock and it is my hope that other pre-teens and teens will follow in my footstep. When you want something done do you lead by example or give instruction? 🙂

Day 93

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Celebrity-worship and hero-worship should not be confused. Yet we confuse them every day, and by doing so we come dangerously close to depriving ourselves of all real models. We lose sight of the men and women who do not simply seem great because they are famous but are famous because they are great. We come closer and closer to degrading all fame into notoriety. – Daniel J. Boorstin

It’s 6: 35 PM on day 93 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, feed myself Appam – bread made of rice batter – and beef curry for breakfast, tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign for a few hours – no one has donated so far today but I did make the $25 donation on behalf of the person that sent me money via PayPal yesterday – I wanted to get the money out of my account and into my campaign ASAP so as to avoid even the appearance of impropriety – feed myself myself Batura – deep fried bread – for lunch, help my brother make Custard – every time he tested the mixture he had the same thing to say needs more sugar LOL 🙂 – attempt to get myself off the wheelchair and onto the bed – I love my mom but every time she sees me struggling to do something she just comes in and does it for me – it makes me feel so incompetent 🙁 – and exercise for 10 minutes – I should really buy my brother a gift of some sort thanks to him the exercise session didn’t long – he was on my mother’s back – quite literally – LOL 🙂

Yesterday while on Twitter I was excited to read of a man in Berlin who was cured of HIV by means of a stem cell transplant however, my excitement quickly turned to deep dismay when I realized that more people were taking about The Golden Globes then a man being cured of HIV don’t misunderstand what I’m trying to say I fully acknowledge that everybody has the right to freedom of speech and I would NEVER dream of infringing on that right all I’m trying to say is that with a right to say what you want to say comes a responsibility to say things that will make this world a better place. Is it just me or have people lost sight of what’s really important? 🙁

Day 92

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“The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.” – Morrie Schwartz

It’s 6: 43 PM on day 92 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, feed myself Appam – bread made of rice batter – and chicken curry for breakfast, tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign for most of the day –someone made a $25 donation to my campaign via PayPal which I will upload to my page as soon as my dad gets back from wherever he is – I used his credit card to make donations on behalf of those who send me contributions via PayPal – feed myself rice and curry for lunch – and exercise for 20 minutes – my mother went easy on me today when I said we were done she just let it be truth-be-told I think that she was just too tired to argue with me LOL 🙂

A few weeks ago, my cousins – let’s call the oldest Anna and the youngest Christina for the purpose of this blog – came to visit while I was wring a blog post about how sad I was that I wouldn’t be attending Christina’s wedding I knew Christina’s curiosity would get the better of her so I copied and pasted everything I wrote onto a new post on WordPress and closed the Word document – or so I thought – a few minutes later I clicked on something by accident and the Word document popped up and despite my best efforts to close it before she got a chance to read what I wrote she had already read it – I thought I would die at that very moment LOL 🙂 – but after the embarrassment faded and the colour of my cheeks returned to its normal shade I realized that having feelings and not expressing them is equivalent to not having any feelings at all. Are you afraid to express your feelings for fear of rejection? 🙂

Day 91

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You think you’re alone, but you’re not the only one – Unknown.

It’s 5: 00 PM on day 91 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, feed myself Sweet potatoes with a dip consisting of yoghurt, onion and chilli for breakfast, tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign for a few hours – something happened while I was tweeting I was stuck by the crushing realization that unless you’re celebrity or someone in a position of power most people will blow you off when you ask for a donation – I thought I would try my luck and ask Alyssa Milano (the actress who played Phoebe on the popular TV show Charmed) for a donation only to find out that she too had started a fundraiser for Charity Water and raised $19 220. 38 with 18 days still remaining till the close of her campaign – don’t get me wrong I am very happy that Alyssa is using her influence to change lives but I just find it frustrating that when Alyssa asks people donate freely whereas, I could ask a thousand people and have no one donate 🙁 – feed myself rice and curry for lunch, exercise for 30 minutes – I was in so much pain but I just kept saying without pain there would be no pleasure over and over in my head and before I knew it, it was over 🙂 – and practise picking up the newspaper – every time I picked up the paper I had put my hand on a hot iron – it was like there was a civil war going on between my muscles – not fun at all 🙁

We all have days when we want to scream, yell and throw things at the wall and today as I was struggling to pick up the paper I thought to myself who has to practise picking up the paper and then I realized that there are thousands if not millions of people worldwide have Cerebral Palsy and although I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy I found great solace in the fact that I was not alone in my struggles and this I guess is the massage I’d like to pass onto to you – whatever you’re going through in your life there’s someone somewhere who’s going through the exact same thing you are. Have you ever had a shared experience with someone who you thought you had nothing in common with? 🙂