#11 – Life In Reverse

For me, learning to read and write was a traumatic experience that I will probably never be able to un-sear from my memory. Endless evenings of sitting at the kitchen bar doing my homework would often melt down into miserable tears of torturous frustration. My letters and numbers were completely backwards. Math was a foreign language and reading was totally out of reach. The only real learning assistance for kids with dyslexia when I was growing up was to “flunk” them so they had to do a grade twice. Repeating second grade only added to my shame and misery. And determination.

I spent countless after-school hours on my bedroom floor in front of my plastic record player with my best friend, Hooked-On-Phonics. It became the key I needed to open up a door I so desperately wanted to get on the other side of. And once I was able to reverse all that backwards stuff – a world unfurled before me. Because it was a hard-won entrance, it was a world I wanted to spend every possible moment in I could. Books were my escape. They made me laugh. They kept me company. They validated me. They dulled my pain. And introduced me to beautiful magic and other fantastical things. They always made me feel welcome – I never didn’t belong.

It became the key I needed to open up a door I so desperately wanted to get on the other side of. And once I was able to reverse all that backwards stuff – a world unfurled before me.

The dyslexia never went away. I didn’t  do great in math in school, unless it was in my head. I’ll never be able to learn a foreign language to save my life. Except for essays, test-taking has never been easy. My sense of direction is the worse. But once I could, I’ve always been able to read. And write. So, I read and wrote my way through college. And, really, have been reading and writing my way through life, in one way or another, ever since.

Things are leaps and bounds more advanced now in terms of the knowledge and help available to kids and grown-ups with learning disabilities. And, even though I knew they’d be in good hands if needed, I was relieved that I did not pass on my dyslexia to either Olive or Cash. I just couldn’t bear it if they experienced endless nights of suffering over homework because of me. And yet, that experience of being so determined at such a young age really informed who I am. And set me up for a life-long true love for books and the written word and the wonder of it all.

I have young customers who shop at Bee Hive who are dyslexic and over the years, I’ve watched them grow from unsure, struggling readers to the most beautiful, capable, avid readers of them all. And, inevitably, they seem to grow into being the coolest kids with a sort of weightyness about them. I don’t believe the ability to read or write is something to be taken for granted.  But those who faced the fear of never being able to tackle them at all – ever – have been to a place and back that those who came into reading without a learning disability, may not understand. It’s a place of pure gratitude. Of being on the other side of something you had to work very hard for. Of hoping you never have to work that hard for anything again, but knowing, if you have to, you totally can. And you will.

I wonder, if maybe, its what being a superhero feels like.