Author Archives: Brianna Albers

The romantic in me wants to believe that dreams are portents, or windows to the psyche, or invaluable self-knowledge tools. But the therapist in me, who dabbled in clinical psychology for a time, is suspicious of anything resembling psychoanalysis. (I despise Sigmund Freud, but that’s a topic for another…

My dad and I are night owls. We rarely leave the house before noon — and when we do, we complain the entire time, like a pair of sulky babies. My mom laughs at us, but it’s just how our brains are wired. We can fight it, and…

Not everyone likes it. A while back, I was talking to a friend in Singapore who also has SMA. She mentioned that although she wanted to post something for SMA Awareness Month, she was struggling to balance her desire to advocate and raise awareness with her desire to,…

When it comes to storms, I’m a dog with high levels of anxiety. Don’t get me wrong, I love the rain. A gentle rainfall is the perfect backdrop to at least half of my favorite activities. But storms are a different story. Storms are thunder and lightning and…

I was a bit of an Anglophile in high school. I was obsessed with anything produced by the BBC — “Doctor Who,” “Sherlock,” “Merlin,” even the 2006 retelling of “Robin Hood.” It didn’t help that my best friend lived in Scotland and often spoke in British endearments. I was…

I’m a productivity geek. I’m not content with simply doing things. I want to do them well. And I want to do as much as I possibly can in the time I have left. Productivity has served me well. Over the years, productivity has gotten me a bachelor’s degree…

Many, many years ago, I gave a presentation on the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990. I was in middle school at the time, and was hopelessly devoted to the concept of “normalcy.” I wanted more than anything to fit in. To live a different life, with…

As someone who avoided the disability community for years, I am slowly learning that I am not alone — my struggles are shared by hundreds of thousands of people across the world. “The Pretty One: On Life, Pop Culture, Disability, and Other Reasons to Fall in Love With…

I hoped that things would “get back to normal” — whatever that means — by mid-summer. Reader, I was disappointed. But I’m used to disappointment. After all, I spent the better part of two decades learning to embrace lockdown mentality. I’m an expert at gazing wistfully through windows and…

My family has a saying: “It’s always an adventure with us.” It originated with Katelyn, an honorary member of the Albers household and my first personal care assistant (PCA). “It’s always an adventure with you,” she once said. I don’t remember the context — it could’ve been anything…