It was about five years ago. I met a friend for a run out at the Panhandle Trail in Collier Township. After the run, we decided to go somewhere for a beer. I can’t remember where, but the point is, I got lost. Why? I always got lost while leaving the Panhandle Trail. Why? I mean, why couldn’t I find my way home from that place if I could find my way to it?
Beats me. But my friend suggested I download a GPS app on my phone (they were free by then), and that mainly solved a life-long problem for me–getting lost while driving.
I drive for a living, these days, so I’ve gotten better through practice, but there are often still occasions where I find myself in a neighborhood and can’t remember if I should turn left or turn right (this is where the GPS app really comes in handy).
I’ve always had a terrible sense of direction. It’s not just limited to driving, either. I often get lost while running in certain neighborhoods. The South Side or Lawrenceville? Piece of cake. Shadyside, Oakland and parts of Bloomfield? Send out the search party.
My sense of direction has always been a source of frustration, but that’s mainly because I often forget about one major thing: I’m dyslexic. And I don’t mean in the casual way that many people often refer to it when they spell a word wrong. I mean, I was diagnosed as a dyslexic as a kid, and it’s a learning disorder that stays with you for life.
The reason I often forget about it, is because I stopped getting help for my problem after the fifth grade. That’s right, they didn’t have much for me in middle school and high school. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure I could have gotten more help had I not been such a stubborn little brat. It didn’t help that my mom and grandparents all dropped out of high school. Therefore, they didn’t approach life the way your typical well-adjusted suburban families did. They were just trying to get by and pay their bills.
Anyway, I do podcasts now, and that has helped to remind me that I am dyslexic. Why is that? Because I often struggle with getting my words out while doing my shows. I’ve gotten better at it, but it’s still a struggle. I can think of what I want to say, but it often doesn’t come out the way I want it to.
It’s all good, though, because being dyslexic doesn’t make you less intelligent than folks without the condition. In fact, many brilliant minds throughout history have been dyslexic.
Dyslexia isn’t an impossible disability to overcome. We just have to take a different path to achieve our goals.
For example, I’m horrible at reading directions for building or making things. But if I see how something is done, I can then figure out how to do it for myself. In fact, if I’m on my own, I often have to figure it out through trial and error.
If you try to explain something to me in a technical way, I may not get it. But if I can visualize what I have to do, that’s so much easier.
Dyslexia is a learning disability, but we do have gifts that others don’t. I can attest to that. One such gift I have is the ability to multi-task. Sure, that muscle was built up by some previous jobs where I had to do many things at once all day, every day, but I do seem to be better at it than most folks I know.
I’m also highly creative and often have three or four writing ideas floating around in my head at any given time.
I also don’t need to work in an organized fashion. I can complete tasks out of sequence without any order to anything. My memory is also frighteningly good, as I basically remember every damn thing all the way back to about the age of eight.
There are things that have held me back in life, such as my hatred of school. I mean, I still have bad dreams to this day where I’m sitting in a classroom and not enjoying myself.
I tried to hack college, but I just couldn’t finish it. I just lacked focus and the confidence to do so.
Oh well, I’m still doing pretty well in life. I’m a semi-pro writer with a reading comprehension level of close to 100 percent (reading is something that dyslexics often struggle with).
As for the podcasting part of it, I have my good days and my bad, but I used to struggle as a writer before I conquered that through repetition. The same thing will happen with podcasting.
Now if I can only conquer my inability to get out of a mall………..
tondef 