Journal:
I have never been what was considered “normal”. My whole life has been one huge struggle and as I travel down the path to my future it is like riding on a series of roller coasters with no track at the end of the path. Yet it always seems that I find my way back to the right path, and that I continue on my way with the knowledge that I gained from that derailed turn in my journey in life.
I was born with a learning disability and deaf, and ever since I was a little girl I had to learn the hard way that I was different. I remember growing up in my early childhood days alone and angry. It was like I lived in my own little world that no one else could ever understand.
Children would make fun of the way I talked and call me “retarded”. They did not care that I did not speak at all till I was 5 years old. Nor that I went to hours of speech therapy just to say a sentence. My vision was bad, and I wore thick glasses to correct my eye crossing. “Four eyes, four eyes,” the other children would call me, watching my eyes fill with tears and not caring one bit. The other children would never understand the scare that their name calling left upon me. They could not see the pain building up inside of my body. How I just struggled to fit in and find myself. They did not know that I spent nights alone in my room crying myself to sleep. The other children would never know how hard I worked to learn to read, or add and subtract. They would never understand speech therapy or the hours I put into special classes or the hours I would put in at home on homework. When it took most them only 10 minutes to do their homework, it took me a half an hour. They would never see past my outer shell and most would never truly see the real me.
I spent hours on end by myself, emptying the pain from me on paper. It seems that poetry was my savior, that it saved me from the deep pain and despair that my heart had felt. I could write what I truly felt, anything I wanted to tell the world.
My high school years I wanted so bad to prove the other
children wrong. To show them that I could do anything that they could. I pushed and pushed myself till I was totally drained. I built up tremendous stress on myself, just to prove I was as good as any of them. I made up songs to teach me spelling words and rewrote my history notes over and over again. I went to study session after study session. After years of hard work I made the honor role, and I made As and Bs. I joined clubs and sports. Hey! I was even the president of Spanish Club. I even had corrective eye surgery to fit the crossing in my eyes, in which I spent over a month and a half recovering from. Yet anything I did was not good enough for the other kids. It seems I was still the retarded dork that everyone could treat badly. I still belonged to my own world. I was the one who wore neon orange before it was popular. I had my own unique fashion. I was an outsider.
That is when I learned the first important lesson in my life. That I should not care what the other children think. That I should ignore what they were saying and do things for myself. I learned that, yes, I was different from all of them, yet that was “ok” because truly “there is no normal and just different” in this world. I built up self esteem and for once in my life I did things for myself. I had found my true self, the person who could do anything she wanted. And even though I am still fighting with my disability, my real struggle is done. I know I am a fighter and I know what I put my mind to I can overcome. Sure it will take me longer than someone else. But in the end, I will come out on top!
Credits:
Valorie Wibbens:
Tommorrow's Strength
The Little Things
The Good Stuff
Just Jaimee:
Pronuncial Alpha
Lynne-Marie and Pink R. Designs:
Boho Bliss
Font:
Pea Kari (my personal handwriting)
