You can deal with what you know when that information is afforded to you.

I learned too late there was a conversation missing. Growing up, I knew that there were things I could see, consequences I was experiencing, but had no explanation for them. I knew there were expectations, appointments and exercises, but I didn't know the reason behind them.

I was a child living with information that existed around me, but never with me. That is the part I find hardest to digest.

The adults around me knew there was something different. There were medical appointments. There were treatments. There were plans to help me physically. But I didn't know what any of those meant.

As a child, you don't stop to question what you're not told. You trust. You accept the world you are given because you have nothing else to compare it with. You trust the people looking after you understand what you need and will tell you what you need to know. When that conversation doesn't happen, the child simply continues to grow without the understanding they needed.

For years, I carried the consequences of not knowing.

I tried to understand my own challenges without knowing there was a reason for them. I looked at the things I found difficult and eventually took on the role of assuming they were simply part of who I was.

Without explanation, it is easy to turn things inward on yourself. You begin to question yourself. You continually to internally ask why things seem harder and why you feel different. You search for answers without knowing what question you are trying to ask.

When I eventually discovered I had cerebral palsy, I didn't just glean a diagnosis. I started to learn that there had been a part of my own story I had never known about or understood. My writing brings that into focus.

It changes the way I look back. The hospital visits meant something different. The physiotherapy meant something different. The exercises mean something different. The memories stay the same, but the meaning has changed.

I think that is one of the hardest parts of discovering something later in life. You are not only learning something new about yourself; you are revisiting the person you were before you knew. It's hard.

You begin to think about the child you were and what you needed. Not just the hospital visits, or the treatment. Not just the exercises, but the understanding. Finally you find  your voice. The chance to know yourself.

The conversation that never happened cannot be recreated. Time doesn't move backwards. The questions I had as a child cannot be answered in the same way now. But writing has given me somewhere to place those questions.

The CP Diary was the beginning of that journey. It continues to be be the space where I can continue that conversation for myself. It is a place where I can explore what I have experienced, what I have carried, and what it means to finally understand.

You learn that silence doesn't mean something didn't matter. Silence doesn't stay silent. Eventually it becomes something.

The conversation I needed as a child may not have happened then. But through writing, I finally have it.