I haven’t always been proud of my disabled identity. As an impressionable grade schooler, it’s a struggle to hold onto pride in the very thing the outside world tells you is your biggest, most unfortunate, most pitiable flaw. Until I was 11, I was vehemently opposed to using any type of mobility aid, especially in public, because I thought it meant I was failing or disrespecting my body’s supposed innate ability to work normally.

Though I had no idea what the term meant at the time — I was barely even in double digits — my own internalized ableism was stopping me from seeing a world filled with wonder, loads of snazzy wheelchair accessories and the promise of no longer having to balance on the seesaw between becoming “normal” and having a life. Now, my wheelchair is my normal, and I love it.

I named my current wheelchair “Harriet the Chairiet,” based on both the Harriet the Spy novels beloved by 12-year-old me, and my writer’s addiction to a well-developed play on words. Together we’ve survived the first three years of high school, a worrisome election and the transition to teenagehood with only minor battle scars: She has a permanently bent footplate from one too many run-ins with inaccessible bathroom doors, and I have fought acne and teenage moodiness.

With Harriet’s help, I’ve been able to roll to movie nights, eat popcorn, and lose track of time talking with my friends while dreading the inevitable “Where are you?” text from my mom. Harriet goes with me to concerts, but stays behind when I experiment in the kitchen, because the last thing I need is for her to get covered in flour. Harriet has brought me joy and independence, and she’s helped me grow into someone who is proud of both her mobility aids and her disability. She’s been the sidekick in my own coming-of-age story, but now Harriet is inching closer to retirement. Her casters bump instead of glide and her battery can barely make it through a full school day, let alone an increasingly packed after-school social life.

I know I need a new wheelchair, but with insurance’s five-year clock ticking toward my wheelchair evaluation date, I worry that I’m at risk of receiving a chair that doesn’t fit my needs. When I went to my latest annual wheelchair fitting, I knew that I was going to have to fight to keep hold of that joy — and my identity in the process. I don’t know if it’s because of my age or the fact that I live in a small town, but my wheelchair technician couldn’t hide his shock that Harriet and I go on adventures outside of my home or, what seems to be the only other “acceptable” option, a health care facility.

Our solo adventures aren’t anywhere earth-defying — in fact, they’re blissfully normal jaunts to the coffee shop or the library to work on biology homework. But to the wheelchair technicians, I may as well have let slip that I fly with NASA to Mars every Tuesday. It’s clear that to the medical system, Harriet and I are novel. But we shouldn’t be.

My next Harriet needs to be able to handle everything I want to do in the community and in my life. It needs a longer battery life to handle rolling through a full day at college, and enough clearance to navigate cracks in the sidewalk. It needs temperature resistant controls to not leave me stranded in the bitterly cold Chicago winters.

I have my own dreams and the right to chase them. The right mobility aids give me control over leading the life I want to. My life shouldn’t be dictated by what insurance and the health care system deem acceptable. I deserve to have technology that supports me through whatever my next chapters may be — as do all disabled kids. Since young people are the future, all of us need the tools to change the world.

Anja Herrman is the winner of United Spinal Association’s 2023 SWTCon Award for Writing.