Sitting by the water

The hot summer sun is burning down on my face. The trees, and cabins are whizzing by me before my eyes. I am holding on as tightly as I can to the rope. Brad is going 20 mph which feels like 100 mph to me. I jump over a wave, go in and out of the wake, and even let go of the rope with one hand to showing off. But what I'm really doing, I am is sitting on the pond deck, waiting my turn and imagining what that would feel like.

I'm ready with my skis as Brad starts the boat up. I grab onto the handle and he starts to tug. Once the boat hits 5 mph I flop down into the water face first. "I wanna try again," I say. Brad sighs knowing I'm not going to succeed but still lets me do it anyway. Try #2: I grab the rope, squeezing it till my hand hurts. Brad pushes the gas, barely up to 6 mph, but I fall right away. This time my skis fall off and Brad has to stop the boat and help me get them back on. Since my legs are tight and not very good at being flexible companions, Brad has to do all the work. He leans over the side of the boat, lifts up my foot while I hand him the skis which he and tries to squeeze it back on. Ten minutes later my skis are back on and I get in position. The engine rumbles, the pond ripples, I see the open lake just waiting for me to get to the other side. I hold on tight, and as Brad pumps the gas to 8 mph, my knees come out of the water for about one second. And then, I say hello to the fish again. If it weren't for the sun going down, I would try to convince Brad to help me all night. But we both know I'm getting tired and it's time to give someone else a chance. I watch as all my other friends get on their skis and whip around the pond like it's no big deal. That's familiar to me, watching everyone else around me do relatively normal things that seem inconceivably easy for them but painfully hard for me. Just walking down the New York City streets is something I try to avoid. Well I can't really avoid it because it's where I live and I have to get to school somehow. You'd think I was a celebrity with the amount of attention I get. The unsolicited comments range from, "God bless you, don't give up," or "What happened to your legs" to "why are you walking like a zombie?" If they knew me, they would know that giving up isn't even in my vocabulary. Maybe other people opt for an easy way out. But nothing for me has ever been easy. Whether I'm falling face first into the pond or finding myself intimately close with the pavement, I have no choice but to get back up. Such are the challenges of living in a body that betrays you. But when the summer comes around, I'm going to put back on those skis back on, grab the rope and challenge Brad's patience all over again. Who knows, this may be the summer where I finally feel the freedom of zipping in and out of the wake.