People like funny, feisty AK_SalmonGranny.

People like all the other kids at my school who have disabilities.

People like me.

Fighting for the right to an education.

For the right to … be treated like people.

Seriously? It used to be legal—common—to not let some kids even come to regular school? Just because they used wheels or needed other kinds of help?

I think about all the kids at E. L. Pinckney who need help from teachers or aides to do certain things during the school day. Like Demarion, who holds a brush in his teeth and makes some of the coolest paintings I’ve ever seen. Or Tina, who takes all her tests in the resource room and sometimes records classes instead of writing notes because of her dyslexia. Would they all have just had to stay home? Not get to learn or make any friends?

Then I think about myself and what my life might have looked like if I’d been born before the 504 Sit-In. Or in a place where the laws still haven’t changed.

It all feels like a gut punch.

How did I not ever know about this?

All this new information makes my head spin. But I’m still sort of stuck on all my other issues. So for now I file it away for later and tell AK_SalmonGranny about what’s been going on. School, Dawn, Devontae, Ale, Dr. Grayling—everything. Then I ask her advice.

AK_SalmonGranny: Hoo-boy. Your school did it up in style, didn’t it? Up on the stage and everything. Sounds like somebody had a lot of fun planning that.

HalfpipeEmms: Yeah

AK_SalmonGranny: Afraid I don’t have many concrete answers. I don’t doubt that everyone probably had good intentions. Sometimes that makes it harder.

I frown at the screen, wishing she’d just tell me what I’m supposed to do.

HalfpipeEmms: Well, can you tell me when all this gets easier?

AK_SalmonGranny: Explain.

HalfpipeEmms: How old were you? When all this life stuff made more sense?

Hitting send on that one feels good, like I’ve finally landed on the question that’s been chewing at me all along. Her response takes a long time. Or maybe it only feels that way.

AK_SalmonGranny: Ohh, honey.

HalfpipeEmms: Like a long time???

AK_SalmonGranny: Like, never.

HalfpipeEmms: Never?

AK_SalmonGranny: Afraid so. Why do you think I compensate with snarky accessories?

HalfpipeEmms: What about boys? Will they always be this confusing?

AK_SalmonGranny: I don’t know about boys, dear. But relationships? Yes. They’re about as simple as three tangled fishing lines.

HalfpipeEmms: Nooooo

AK_SalmonGranny: You wanted it straight, yes?

HalfpipeEmms: Um. Yeah?

AK_SalmonGranny: But you wanted a different answer. I understand. None of this is easy. Adults learn to fake it a little better—if they’re lucky.

This is so not the answer I was hoping for.

Still, a tiny part of me feels good to hear all this from someone else. To sort of give words to all the big, scary, overwhelming things I’ve been trying to navigate with no GPS.