1. When your middle school guidance counselor walks into the nurse's office to 'check in on you' after you've had a major femur fracture, and your pants are down to your ankles, and you're screaming as your mom puts a temporary splint on you -- just know that hoping your guidance counselor won't tell anyone about your Snoopy underwear is going to be the least of your worries. I promise you that.

2. When, as a college student, you ask the phlebotomist drawing your blood "is this going to hurt?" And she looks at you like you've got a hundred heads it's because she is probably thinking: girl you've broken bones, this is just a .09 second pinch! So don't be offended when she doesn't answer you and instead jabs you without warning. Just breathe.

3. When the floor below your college dorm catches on fire, and the entire dorm evacuates and you've been told to not use the elevator, just know that it's probably not the greatest time to try sending morse code signals across the quad to your friends outside. Because the campus security officers have probably been trying to contact you on your emergency walkie-talkie, the one that you didn't bother to charge all semester long. Safety first.

4. Even though having all of your friends get into a congo line while sitting in those office chairs on wheels so that you could pull them... down the hill on campus seemed like a good idea to everyone at the time, it probably isn't. Instead it'll probably look like a bunch of idiotic students having too much fun wasting time they should be spending on studying. Don't worry everyone knows that you look foolish and they expect you to. Prioritize fun.

5. That boy who asked you to go to prom did it because he likes you. It's the same reason anyone else would ask anyone else to prom. Don't think too much into it. Just go, make mix CD's for each other, take awkward prom pictures, never look at them again, and breathe a sigh of relief that it's over. You don't need to know the answers to everything. Just enjoy yourself.

6. When you make reservations at a bar in Harvard Sq Cambridge, MA for your 21st birthday and you tell them the reservation is under the name "Sarah Palin" (because you are a wise-ass college senior..), and the hostess taking the order says "can you spell that for me please?" Just know that it's because she couldn't believe her ears, since you and your friends were giggling hysterically into the phone. Also because Cambridge, MA really is that liberal, and you won't know how lucky you were to go to school right near by until you graduated. Do things because you can.

7. When you get your first wheelchair in the same color as your favorite Power Ranger (the pink one), just know that your second grade self won't ever forgive you for it. Because your second grade self has already moved on to Ninja Turtles and Spiderman, and when you are older your superheroes won't change as quickly. That's how you'll know you're getting older faster. Surround yourself with amazing people. Keep good people around.

8. There will be a really weird and scary occupational therapist with the shaved head (she'll remind you of The Witches by Roald Dahl), who will belittle you inside of "The Learning Center" in elementary school. And one day when you're putting the pegs into the holes on the wooden board for the millionth time, you will flip out. You will throw the bucket of pegs on the ground, slam the wooden board on to the floor and scream: "I AM NOT JUST SOME PEG THAT WILL FIT INTO ANY HOLE!"And that will be the end of her. Someone out there is listening to you. Speak your mind. 

9. When your shoe laces get caught in the front wheels of your wheelchair yet again it'll always happen at the worst times. It'll happen when you really gotta go to the bathroom. It'll happen when you're just mere feet away from class, and suddenly you're stuck in the hall - awkwardly - and everyone in class is waiting. It'll also happen when you're just about to exit the subway and you're stuck, your ankle yanked by the frayed laces of your sneakers. You won't ever learn. Tie your damn shoes.