The Lies We Learn: Writing is Hard.

I am starting a series called “The Lies we Learn”. Lies sounds harsh I know, but they aren’t told to us as lies they are told to us as truths from the people who raise us, from the people who love us, from the people who have our best interests at heart, from the people who are “protecting” us. All because they love us and want to keep us safe. They are trying to teach us how to live in a word and not get broken open. How to live in this world with our heartbreak and pain. It’s very endearing of them. Truly I believe it is…they love us so so much they want to protect us from all the pain and all the harm. So, they tell us truths as they have come to learn them in hopes we will learn the lesson from them instead of from experience. While this is the most loving thing they could do for us, it is not the way life works because everyone is different. Everyone has different experiences. Everyone has different feelings about the exact same situation. Life is different for everyone. Life is beautiful for everyone.

So round one of the Lies we Learn: Writing is Hard. Where did I learn this lesson? Early! Early on my family saw me struggle with the English language when I started to learn how to speak. Before I hit any schooling where I was around any other children, I went to speech therapy. Why? I talked way too fast and proper pronunciation is still tough for me. Lastly, my younger brother was learning to speak from me…we were thick as little thieves in early childhood. Thus, they said send her…fix her…he will follow suit. It worked. I started pronouncing better and talking slower. Sure, as shit it worked…little buddy followed suit!

This was just the beginning down a long road of Laura struggles with the English language. Next came the alphabet. I’m not sure why this one was so tough for me but damn it was. I had a poster of the alphabet in my room with animals for each letter. I loved animals, so it made perfect sense. I know one struggle was just from growing up in the south. I sincerely thought the alphabet had two “N”s in it…the one with “L,M, N, O” and the other at the end with “X,Y, N, Z”…I think this was on the fault of the people I was learning the alphabet in class from. All my teachers were southern and we southerners like to abbreviate our words. Anywho I remember that being a SERIOUS struggle for me.

Once a conquered that obstacle I went onto reading. Let me tell you I don’t know what reading level I had growing up, but it was never accelerated. Which when compared to my older sister meant there as something wrong with me. Kids can be not so good at math, and they are excused from this because they are “just bad at math”. But heaven forbid a kid can’t read a fast as everyone else. Or has a little trouble. It’s A LOT bigger deal.

In reality, why this probably bothered me so much growing up because I didn’t feel like I was “good” at reading. Thus, I didn’t want to read. And reading in my family was something all the other women enjoyed doing together except me! They all loved reading. They had their little book club going amongst them, and I wasn’t a part of that because I didn’t like to read. I didn’t belong to that group…yep, you read that right…that old trigger of not belonging to said, group. I’m telling you love it’s a theme in my life!

Reality, I was just fine at reading. I just read slow. I read slow. I get easily distracted while reading. Why? Maybe because I’m dyslexic to some degree? Something never diagnosed because my dad didn’t want me to be negatively labeled from a young age and my mom dealt with it as well and she did just fine! I don’t blame them for not officially getting me tested and allowing me to take longer on all tests throughout my entire life. (yet I can still be slightly salty I didn’t get that upper hand on all tests especially standardized!) I do blame them for not admitting it to me. For not sitting me down and saying hey there…so the reason you struggle at reading is you don’t see things exactly the same. Things get mixed up somewhere between the page, your eyes, and the way you read them. It’s okay. There is absolutely nothing wrong with you, but instead of getting angry and confused with this happens, slow down, breathe, and look at the page again. Maybe read it out loud to yourself. So, you can see it and hear it.

I didn’t want to be different and special, but I wanted to understand. Instead of helping me understand, they tried to protect me from being labeled and thus resulting in tons of frustrations in my life growing up. It resulted in the feeling that I wasn’t good enough because I wasn’t reading fast enough.

I don’t blame them. They were trying to do what they thought was best for me. So, I got the lesson young that English was not my friend. I was great at Math and very intrigued by science. I got the message from a young age my sister was good at English. I was good at Math. Play your strengths baby girl, don’t focus on your weaknesses.

Either way, this led to me making some assumptions…

I’m not good at reading.

Thus, I’m not good at English.

Thus, I’m not good at writing.

I always believed that, and honestly writing & grammar have never been my strong suit. I saw major improvements when I was in High School, and then again when I was in Graduate School. I still second guess where I should have comas and where I shouldn’t. I still try my hardest to not end a sentence in a proposition, because somewhere along the line I was told that is not allowed.

The “i before e except after c” still throws me for all the times that rule does not apply. I struggle using “quit, quiet, and quite” correctly…I know they have very different means, but not kidding you they almost always trip me up when I use any 3 of them. Knowing these things makes a good professional writer. By professional I mean someone who is writing up documents of legal stature for others to read or writing laws or writing scientific papers. You need to have things written properly otherwise people with second guess your creditability.

I am not the best professional writer, but I do say my M.S. Thesis was pretty damn good! While that type of writing is not my strong suit, I have always loved writing. In a family of we don’t talk about our problems within the family, and we certainly do not share outside the family it was my release. It was my way to talk about my feelings with feeling like I was being heard. Even if it was only by me.

The first time I remember using this outlet was when my Grandpop passed. I felt strangely close to him. He fell sick near Christmas. I begged my mom for us to go up and see him before Christmas because I wanted to see him before he died. We had a plan to head up the day after Christmas. So, my mom using her rational and hope she said we would wait till when we were supposed to head north. My Grandpop passed on December 23. I didn’t get to say goodbye. I had faced death before. My Granddaddy had passed away when I was 8, but this was a big one for me. I was more aware of the meaning. I remember the next day sitting in my closet with the door closed writing a poem about Grandpop. I don’t remember what it said, and I don’t know if I still have it, but I vividly remember the process and how I felt better afterward. Relief.

Since then I have written to decompress, to process, to digest the information and feelings I have in my life. I’ve written to understand what is going on inside of me and around me. I fell away from the practice for a while. I kept the same journal from undergraduate school through graduate school. Mainly because some of it was electronic, but maybe because I was too afraid of the reality I would find if I dug deeper into what I was truly thinking.

I started writing again in 2017. Mainly this started as a distraction away from the writing I was supposed to be doing…my thesis. But then it kept going long after the thesis was over. That’s when I realized…I’m a writer. I’m a damn good writer. Here is a place I can open myself up. I can be vulnerable, and I can share my words to help others not feel so alone.

“But Laura, isn’t opening up like this scary?”

Hell fucking yeah it is! It’s so scary, but I’ve also connected with people over the short 2 months I’ve been writing this blog who simply have to say…Me too. I feel this way too. I felt so alone in this feeling, and then I read or heard something you said and me too. That trumps the fear.

Plus, writing in this way, opening myself up in this way honestly comes easy to me. Typically to write a blog, I sit down for 1-2 hrs and just type this shit out. I have topics flowing through my head all the time. I have probably 20 started blogs in my folder and another 10-20 in my notes on my iPhone. I began one in a current book I’m reading…Untamed by Glennon Doyle. If you aren’t reading that book and you are trying to find your wild…love I cannot stress this enough, GET ON THAT SHIT!!! Plus, I know one day I’ll meet Glennon and Abby, I’ll tell Glennon that story and it’ll be perfect!

Any who…back to writing. I’m good at this shit. I’m good at breaking myself open and letting my words fall out of me. I’m good at being vulnerable. I’m good at over sharing…true rebellion against the family who never shared! WRITING IS EASY!!!

You know what’s hard. Listening to everyone else is hard. Listening to their limiting believes and doubting yourself in the process is hard. Overcoming the labels put on you throughout your life is hard. Blowing past your limitations and doing the damn thing is hard. Being genuinely and authentically yourself is hard.

So, my wish for you love is to sit a little extra today and wonder…what lights you up?

Does painting put you at ease, calms the voices in your head, but your wine bottle looks like well jar of spaghetti? Fucking paint that bottle…jar masterpiece!

Do you love playing music and it brings you joy no matter how hard you struggle through those cords? Chase that joy!

When you write do the words just seem to write themselves and you can’t help but smile during the entire process? Find that smile boo!

Because this life is about what lights you up. You have to find the joy in your everyday life. You have to chase after the things that light you up. They aren’t by chance. They are in you for a reason. Someone needs to see, touch, taste, hear your work of art! Someone needs you to show up 100% authentically as you!