BRAVERY 52 | List 25

LIST 25 | List the things from your childhood that felt like a challenge at the time but are now easy parts of your life.

Undiagnosed dyslexia made math difficult but the coping skills I learned served me well. Feeling stupid every day, knowing that I wasn't was the most frustrating part.I learned to quickly memorize passages and formulas, as long as they were in English, other languages (like math, French and chemistry) were always a challenge. I became very observant of people and greatly enjoyed when teachers would read passages out of English and History texts, hoping that those were the things I'd be tested on at the end of term.

And at one particular job, I had a bookkeeper on staff who asked me to bring all of my calculations to her and she'd do them for me after realizing that I was "calculator challenged". When my career demanded that I do a lot of math, I became very proficient with formulas on the newly introduced computers. (I'm that old.) I was one of the first to program in DS4 in the early '90s.

The greatest gift of dyslexia was becoming, over time, keenly observant and often picked up on what's not being said, I don't rely solely on what's coming out of people's mouths, or what they write down. I often get "how in the world did you know that?" when certain truths are revealed. To me, the situation was obvious, but not to everyone! It's like a magic trick.