If you’ve lived as an amputee since 1974, you learn early on that the world is divided into two categories: the questions people ask, and the assumptions they make when they’re too polite to ask.

Depending on the weather and my wardrobe, the reactions vary. Wear long pants, and folks assume I just twisted an ankle or hurt my back. Wear shorts, and the curiosity comes out in full force. Was it polio? A childhood accident? Did I stub my toe really, really badly? Depending on my mood—and who’s asking—the backstory might change. I keep a few tall tales in my back pocket, though I try to keep them reasonable enough not to send anyone into complete shock.

Sometimes those interactions are just plain warm and funny. Just the other day, someone smiled and told me that even though I was technically considered disabled, I certainly didn’t act like it. I took it completely as the compliment it was intended to be! Still, I’ve had people ask why I never applied for disability benefits. My answer is simple: Because I’ve worked my whole life.

That isn’t to say it was always handed to me. Living with a prosthesis since the age of ten means getting an extra dose of having to prove yourself. I’ve had job interviewers look at me and decide, before I even opened my mouth, that I couldn’t stand for an eight-hour shift. I once had a delivery job for a dry cleaner where I had to show I could step in and out of a delivery van with an armful of clothes without dropping the load.

Then there was the ultimate test: carrying two children through pregnancy and caring for them as babies, navigating the house and life on crutches while balancing little ones in my arms. I know I run a little funny, and I walk a little funny, too—but I get the job done every single time. Life is full of proving yourself to people, but clearing those hurdles brings a quiet kind of satisfaction.

It helps when you can laugh through it all. Years ago, when I worked at a convenience store, a friend of mine used to drive up in his pickup truck with a chuck-wagon tarp on the back that read, “Hire the handicapped, they’re fun to watch.” He’d walk in, grin, and greet me with a casual, “Hey, Crip!” and I’d shoot right back with, “Hey, Crip!” We always got a good chuckle out of that. In a world that often walks on tiptoe around disability, having that kind of easy, no-nonsense humor was a breath of fresh air.

And let’s be honest: there are serious perks that nobody talks about.

For starters, I only have to shave one leg, which cuts my shower prep time in half. When my foot hurts? I don’t need ice or aspirin—I take the leg off and set it aside. The shoes on my prosthetic side never wear out, never get scuffed up the same way, and best of all, they never stink. I essentially get double the mileage out of every pair I buy.

Then there are the legendary party tricks. I can sit comfortably with one foot resting flat on the floor and the other propped straight up against the ceiling, leaving everyone else in the room wondering how on earth that’s physically possible. Every year around October, my neighbor comes over wanting to borrow a spare leg so that he can pull off his own Halloween shenanigans. And I had a friend—a fellow amputee—who used to stick a knife straight up into his prosthetic foot to watch people lose their minds in sheer horror before realizing it was fake.

Of course, the universe occasionally likes to throw in a plot twist to keep things interesting—like the time I was walking out of Walmart, and my prosthetic knee outright broke. The lower half of my leg detached and fell right off onto the ground. Talk about an awkward exit! Fortunately, I was with someone who could head to the parking lot and bring the car up front to pick me up, because hopping on one bare knee isn’t exactly recommended. Once I was safely in the car, off we went to get the leg repaired.

Over five decades, you learn that people will always have their doubts, their curiosity, and their own funny ways of expressing it. But once you’ve spent a lifetime proving them wrong—and having a great laugh along the way—you realize the journey has been uniquely, wonderfully your own.