Claire in a Chair: 5

Newton’s First Law states that an object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in straight line motion unless acted upon by an outside force.

I see parallels to everyday life. You are driving to school, a car pulls out of nowhere and totals your car. Your family appears to be perfect, then your dad leaves. Your life is going in straight line motion and then all of a sudden it’s not. There is a shift, a force, a change.

My life is good. I am happy and healthy, maybe even “stable.” I consider my health and strength to be at plateau, where I have neither progressed nor regressed. But I feel like I’ve been on this high ground for years. Extra years of strength most with SMA lose in their pre-teens or simply never have. I am at school nearly every day and I’ve only ever been hospitalized for planned surgeries. To put it simply, my life is in straight line motion and has been for awhile.

It’s coming, it has to be. I know this disease, I know what it does. I’ve seen others become weaker, deteriorate. Am I arrogant or ignorant to think I’m different, to think maybe I won’t get weaker, to think I will be able to do everything I am doing today five years from now? Will I have strength one day and not the next?

As I finish my in-class essay, I feel the muscles in my right arm twitch and I see the differences in my handwriting. My arm is exhausted and needs a break, but I know it will be back soon. It will wake up and I will overuse it again. I fear the force that is progression will one day disallow my arm from waking, or my head from staying upright.

So yes, this impending force can be hard to forget, but at this moment I am both in straight line motion and sitting happily on a plateau. I think I’ll stay here for as long as I can.