How are you a writer?
I was asked this question yet again yesterday. I’m sure everyone has comments or just moments that bring them back to being a little kid, helplessly stranded in a sea of self doubt, surrounded by other kids, mocking. These moments are like portals to the little self we keep inside that’s still wounded from the years of torment. For many it’s probably something physical. “Why are your ears so big?” “Why is you’re nose shaped like that?”
For me it’s misspelled words. I was in the grocery story with my roommates, and he was reading the list I’d written of things we needed. Half the words were misspelled because pen and paper have no spell check. He made sure to point out every misspelled word and laugh. He made a point to correct me, as if telling me how the word it actually spelled would help me some how, would teach me a lesson. As if I’d just been goofing off while the other children were learning to write properly.
“How are you a writer?” he asked between snickers. Yes, how am I? How is it that someone so stupid to misspell “sandwich meet” and “letus” could possibly be a writer, be in college, be a functioning adult? I take it back, it’s not the misspelled words, it’s not the comments that take me back, it’s that feeling. That feeling of being helpless and worthless and stupid.
Suddenly I’m in the 4th grade again. They’re making me write on the board and my hands are shaking because I don’t know how to spell follow. I sound it out in my head. F-a-l-o-w, each letter a scribble because my fingers are slick with sweat. The teacher points and asks “Is that how you spell follow?” and I say no, because of course it’s not. I begin hovering over letters to erase, watching for changes in her expression, watching to see the right answer. Eventually she just gives it to me, because I’m obviously a lost cause. I sit down, heart pounding, sick to my stomach. I know this is how she gets kids to learn. But I can’t learn, because, like the kids whisper behind my back, I’m too stupid.
This is dyslexia. Dyslexia is not just a learning disability. For me, it’s a feeling. A feeling I’m lulled by adulthood into thinking that I've escaped, only to be rushed back when I least expect it.
