Looking back

I have always had this awkward feeling that I was different from the others, the others of course being the children my age, the ones you are forced to from a very young age to relate to, and beware if you don’t, you will be a subject to multiple psychological tests that will leave you scared or on chronic medication for the rest of your life. 

My mom was very nice about my condition and tried to accommodate me as much as possible. She would tell me bedtime stories of how kids with disabilities become hero’s, often subject to many of my childhood nightmares, sharks biting off limbs and kids loosing fingers from ice-skating is hardly a sweet and loving bedtime story to fall asleep to.  Shame, bless her sweet heart she tried hard to build my self-esteem and make me feel better about my situation and myself.

Growing up was a challenge I won’t lie, I would lie awake at night dreading going to school the next day. I didn’t have many friends and the friends I did have also had some birth defects, many of which can’t be fixed with an average middle -class salary and medical aids claim it to be not of high priority.

My mom took me to many speech therapists, it seems as though the older they were the cheaper it got, maybe because they were often scary looking senile old ladies with long black hair growing out of their big black moles that would often follow the movement of her mouth by going up and down as she spoke. My attention was definitely not on the shaping and pronunciation of my vowels and consonants but more on keeping her mole-hair from poking me in the eye.

It was in my final year of high school when I finally made a breakthrough, I could say sentences without stuttering once, but don’t put me in a classroom full of teenagers and force me do a speech in front of everyone. Resembling a red tomato was the least of my problems.  I would often fake a runny stomach or tell my mom that I am not feeling well just to skip the day of my dreaded speech. Many times to my surprise I hear that we are only doing the speech the following week.  Somehow I got through it alive and without being the laughing stock of the day. I still hate public speaking, too many bad childhood memories.

I would find that reading books offered me a life of perfection beyond our imagination, a freedom so different from this reality that I would so often find myself daydreaming in class. I had low self- esteem and found it hard to really relate to anyone, I spent most of my breaks in the school library or the art class. I really loved the art kids, I felt somehow safe with them. They were there for the same reasons as I was, to escape from reality and the box that the school regime tried to force us in, we were the free thinkers, the dreamers. Art frees your mind and takes you to places where no one has ever been before. Books and art became my life, and in a way saved my life.

I didn’t like to talk, I would rather listen and observe. Through observing I gained knowledge and wisdom far beyond my years, I was told by many people that I was too mature for my age and I need to be a kid and enjoy my youth. Easier said than done. Talking to boys an almost impossible task, the ugly ones not so impossible, I reckon them being ugly and me with my stuttering seemed to even themselves out so I didn’t fear speaking to them and making a complete fool of myself. I saw being ugly out of their control, at least I can still do something about my problem, but for looks and stupidity there was no solution. The boys that looked like they came out of a men’s modeling magazine made my heart pump faster and my stutter increasingly worse. It was only at Varsity when I found this inner courage to talk to the boys I found reasonably attractive, the hot ones had some intelligence issues, the lift doesn’t always go all the way up.

I am now much older, bolder and wiser than that insecure teenager that would hide in the art class during breaks or that 20 something year old that was too wise for her own good. If I had a choice to go back and change my past I would not change a thing. Difficulties and challenges often shapes us into the person that we were meant to be, the person that we dream of becoming.

Some part of me still whish that I had the stutter, now everyone expects me to talk more and in doing so we have less chance to really listen.

 The more I learn about people the more I realize that standing on top of a mountain alone is better than standing at the bottom amongst a lost crowd looking up.