If I struggle with writing so much, how do I write every week for Chimes?
Simple. I wanted to prove a lot of people wrong. Since a young age I had been labeled a “retard” and a “sped.” For the most part, it was somewhat true. My writing was retarded; it was well behind where it should have been. I was scared to write because I knew it was going to be a struggle.
I used to blame the system; it wasn’t my fault I couldn’t write. Someone just didn’t teach me correctly. I felt I was perfectly capable of writing; I had just missed the moment they told us the trick to it all. I was not to blame for any of my problems; they were all out of my control.
The truth was that I had full responsibility. Sure, I didn’t choose the dysfunction, but I had the full ability to choose the solution. I just didn’t want to. I wanted writing to be handed to me on a silver platter. Why should I fix what I didn’t break, especially when I was the one getting the shaft. It seemed a logical argument.
So, what was writing like for me when I blamed the problem on others? It wasn’t anything. I didn’t write. I would rant and complain and grudgingly put forth the minimal amount possible. If I was asked to write a two-page paper, you got one page and one line. I would put 10 lines between my name and the start of the first paragraph. I would fight tooth and nail because I didn’t understand, and I was blissfully ignorant of that fact. I didn’t want to do anything about it.
What about the name-calling and harassment? Simple. If you made light of my situation, I punched you in the face without further question. In three years of middle school, the time when adolescents are at their worst, I was suspended from school more than 20 times. I had one detention in the same time span.
It was in middle school that I first started looking for a solution to the problem. I enrolled in a martial arts school. This didn’t take care of my problem, but it did address one of the symptoms. If I was going to fight, I might as well know how to do it.
The one thing I was not expecting to learn during my years of training was discipline. This was a well-needed side effect. As I learned to fight, I also learned to control myself. With this new self-discipline, I was able to let the insults slide. I was also able to focus more when I was required to write, though I still did not like it.
Things came full circle my senior year of high school. In order to fill space in my schedule, I signed up for a creative writing class. Expecting nothing, I would go to class. However, soon I found my muse to be quite clever. I loved going to that class each day; I loved writing poetry. I had found a way to write that I loved. The person who once hated writing now loved to write. Each day I would enjoy placing properly fitting words onto paper.
Later that school year, in my world literature class, I was assigned a 12-page research paper. For the past eight years of my life I had dreaded the phrase “research paper.” This time I was actually excited. I got to choose my own topic, formulate my own ideas and write it in my own style. In a life spent getting no higher than a C+ on any paper, I received a 94 percent.
So through this, what have I learned? Simple. There are many solutions to the same problem; the right one tends to take a bit of work. I learned that writing is not a death sentence, but rather a way for me to speak my mind with little misunderstanding. I didn’t need someone to fix my problem for me; I just needed to know I could do it all along. Just saying.