Alison is exhausted. Between the demands of secondary school and all her extracurricular activities (especially basketball), she is looking forward to having time to unwind and hang out with the many friends she’s made since the end of August. I am so proud of how enthusiastically she has embraced secondary school. She’s going to the Sacred Heart School in Tullamore, my own alma mater, and she wants to be involved in everything from badminton to book club.  It’s no mystery as to why I need to drag her out of bed every morning, typically with the cheesiest song I can find on Spotify playing on full blast on her Alexa. Yet, she hasn’t yet asked for a day off just because; she’s missed school because of a vomiting bug. She wants to be there. Mind you, she’s not buzzing about the homework but, as far as I can make out, she feels like an important part of the school community.

Alas, it took me a little longer to feel that way.

It’s developmentally normal for teenagers to question their parents’ decisions, and at thirteen, I could not work out why my parents would opt to send me to a two-storey Catholic School, when there was a modern, accessible school right next to it. I don’t remember being consulted, and so I already had reservations as I entered through the front door and ambled towards the Dining Hall. I had always attended mainstream education. Throughout primary school, I sat in the classroom with my peers, but truthfully, some of the teachers were softer on me than they should have been. No homework done? Aw, you were tired last night? Don’t worry your little head about it! When my mother found out, she was furious. She and my fourth class teacher joined forces to let me know that being lazy was going to get me nowhere. Honestly, I hated them both, but had they allowed me to drift, I would have had no choice but to drop out of secondary school. And let me tell you, I love them for it now. I shudder to think where I would be now, were it not for their persistence! (Probably sitting at home, pretending to be a writer of some sort. Oh no – wait…)

That said, I spent the first four months of secondary wondering if I was really built for a mainstream education. This was 1997, and Special Needs Assistants (SNAs) were not commonplace. I’d used an electric typewriter for eight years in primary school, but I’d left it behind; they’re heavy beasts, not easily transported, and they are loud! Whenever I typed, it sounded like a mini machine gun. I had an old computer at home, a Sirius – a basic beast with a green screen that had the most basic word processor you could ever imagine – but nothing at school. I remember sitting in class, being afraid to ask teachers for a copy of their notes and praying that I would be able to decipher my own scribbles whenever I got home. I was constantly in trouble for having no legible notes or being late for class. It was a frustrating experience, because I knew I was capable, but I had no way of proving it. That gangly thirteen-year-old could never have imagined applying to study English in Trinity College a short six years later.

The school seemed determined to single me out. At one stage, I wondered if I should wear a cone-shaped hat on my head, just to make sure everyone knew that there was a wobbly alien wandering the halls. Being the only person in a year with over a hundred preteen girls with a visible impairment felt scary. On one hand, I was proud of the effort that I was making to blend in, but the imposter syndrome was on overdrive. I remember that the principal at the time, the lovely Mrs McManamly, organised an occupational therapist to come and do a seating assessment, I was measured up for an orthopaedic chair. With my arms folded, I declared that they were wasting their time as I wasn’t going to use it, so that there was no point in getting one.

Oh no, Mrs Mc winked at me. We’re not just ordering one. We’re ordering one for every class.

Was she serious? Imagine the teasing I’d get while I sat on my specially purchased pink throne, one in every classroom! Anyway, it didn’t make good financial sense for the school. If they were prepared to do that, what would they be expecting from me in return, straight As? When was I going to have fun?

The first (and only, as I begged them not to purchase any more) pink orthopaedic chair came and stayed in Room 22 for six years, the room I used most. Even at that young age, I quickly recognised the difference in my pain levels. Around the same time, in January 1998, following an embarrassing meeting in the CRC with my mother and form teacher (who would ultimately turn out to be one of my favourites, but back then, I was still terrified of her!), I received a basic laptop for school and a Windows ’95 PC, with a special joystick, keyboard and HP Printer for home. I could take my work home on a disc (which, unlike the ones I used with the old Sirius at home, weren’t actually floppy). This was a game changer, not just academically; my classmates were intrigued by the mini laptop, and we started typing notes to each other under the guise of working on assignments. Occasionally, the teacher would cop on to what we were doing, with the embarrassing consequence of having to read out what we’d typed to the rest of the class. No punishment mattered, because we’d laugh about it on the way to the next class. That is how this would-be loner made friends in school.

By the time I was in second year, Dad’s fried/work colleague David had sourced a Windows laptop, which I guarded with my life. At this stage, my classmates were well-versed in carrying my laptop and schoolbag to the next class. While I was grateful for their help, it occurred to me that I didn’t want to be grateful, because it meant that there’d always be a power imbalance between us. Little did I know that good old Mrs Mc had thought of a solution to that, too: an academic assistant, someone to take my laptop and schoolbag from class to class, as well as taking notes and filing them. Now, a big pink chair was one thing, but surely having an actual person following me around all day was going to be a huge obstacle to maintaining any real friendships? She’d probably force me to study all the time and tell the teacher whenever I was passing notes. How wrong I was!

By the time I started third year, I finally found my stride. Caitriona (and from TY onwards, Anne) took me from class to class and took notes. Sometimes they’d sit beside me, usually in classes where I needed their help, while in other classes they would sit at the back and take notes, and both instances allowed me to interact as an equal. Given that neither lady had any formal training, the support that they both gave was top-notch. They never ratted me out when I forgot to do my homework, playing along as we rifled through folders knowing that there were no printouts in them. Their support was invaluable, but I called the shots; I was solely responsible for my own assignments and grades. Later, Caitriona would invigilate my Junior Cert, and Anne my Leaving Cert, offering me some comfort during stressful times.

Once I overcame the embarrassment of needing this assistance, I started to accept myself, and the Sacred Heart played a huge role in my becoming comfortable with my disabled identity. I blagged my way into Transition Year by promising to write a play, and during the summer of 2000, I found to my surprise that I could write a play, because the teachers believed I could. Not only did I write (and later edit) a play, I convinced the teachers to allow me to stage it, and I also helped to produce it. Now, I thought this would make me unpopular in my year and that I would be ostracised for having this privileged position, but surprisingly it had the opposite effect, and I made some loyal friends who stood by me during those tough Leaving Cert years. Because of this, fifth and sixth year were easier, because I no longer felt alone or a burden: I was Simply Sarah.

I shied away from PE, but I threw myself into everything else.  I sharpened my culinary skills. I tried guitar lessons. I went surfing and canoeing in Achill, thanks to Mrs Healy’s support, the same teacher who encouraged me to write “Waiting for Anna”. I did my work experience in the old Tullamore Tribune office on Church Street, which was up a flight of narrow stairs, and forged a working relationship with editor Ger Scully who, even now, always publishes my work if it is good enough. For the first time, I started to contemplate a future that involved real qualifications and a meaningful job, maybe even a career.

Although I found the Leaving Cert years tough going, I still enjoyed school. By now, I felt like I was truly part of a community. Mornings began with Sr Frances in the office, who I loved winding up; the more she advised me to take it easy, the harder I worked, just to annoy her. She often printed out homework from the evening before and filed it (I’d leave my laptop in her office in the evenings after “Afterschool Study” from 4-6 each evening). Whenever I refused her help, she’d call me “stubborn as a mule”, to which I’d bray with laughter. 

What I loved most about school is that the teachers didn’t treat me with kid gloves, and I was punished for forgetting homework, or not knowing my definitions, just like everyone else. I remember the fuzzy feeling of being able to complain with my peers about Ms So-and-So’s bad mood or how much homework we got. Because I was regarded as a swot, my classmates would often request my notes or assignments, and we became experts at committing (tiny) acts of plagiarism. They repaid me in their own notes and by making me laugh, usually during English class, much to the frustration of Ms McKenna. Had I not been such a keen English student, I have no doubt that I would have been expelled!

It’s hard to see when you’re in a fog of adolescent hormones, but I will be forever grateful that I went to the SHS. The career guidance teacher, Mrs Lynch, was instrumental in my decision to go to Trinity and consequently live independently in Dublin, a move that I hadn’t even contemplated to be possible. She also nominated me for a Bank of Ireland Millennium Scholarship which enabled me to live on-campus in Trinity for four years without financial worries, while I read English Studies (well, read when the notion took me). Later, Ms McKenna became an informal source of guidance, and I was so grateful for her time and friendship.

No-one knows what future holds, but I hope Alison’s journey through secondary school will be just as enlightening and fulfilling. Ultimately, though, she has to follow her own path, and I can’t wait to see where this new journey takes her. Hope she has as much fun as I did.