When I was a little girl I thought I wasn’t normal because I was not the average girl in school. I was the only one non Spanish in my class, the only one that didn’t know the language and I had to struggle with dyslexia. Back then, there was no so much knowledge and understanding about dyslexia and I think they thought I was a little stupid.
I remember when a nun tried to show us how to write number 2 and she explained that it was like drawing a little duck swimming. My problem was: in which direction was swimming that damned duckling? No way to distinguish that to me. I made thousands of calculations in my head and always my pencil drew the duckling going away in the opposite direction than his “normal” brothers.
Sometimes I was able to write an entire composition mirror-like without noticing it until the teacher began to call my name to ask for an explanation. I couldn’t, I can’t distinguish p from q from b from d. It’s all the same for me.
I couldn’t say right from left, above from below, so many confusing things that were so easy for the other girls.
My confusion with words were sometimes subject of jokes I didn’t like at all.
So I have to admit I wanted to be like them, invisible, not notorious in any way. It was the best way to survive. But I was not lucky, I thought then.
Now I see things differently. I was lucky to know two languages, to be able to look at the world with different eyes, to have to struggle with learning difficulties and have all the support a kid can ask for at home. That made me strong. Made me understand better people with problems.
Being at home, my parents made me feel like I was the “normal” one, by the way they explained to me the meaning of the little problems of my little life. All that made me who I am.
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