Dear (younger) Alex,

Recently, your parents uprooted your life in Rochester, Minnesota and moved to start a new chapter in Fairfax County Virginia. You just started the 4th grade at Sangster Elementary School and already, your classmates treat Jamestown like it is Disneyland, ride real horses, and have perfect cursive penmanship. Obviously, Virginia has a hard time letting go of the colonial times and takes higher education extremely seriously. But, besides Virginia being oddly proud of it’s past, I know being the new kid in school is hard. Getting teased over your midwestern accent is one thing, but the truth is, I know you don’t want anyone knowing about your secret.

A few months prior to moving, you found out you have dyslexia. Dyslexia sounds pretty bad considering you don’t even know where to begin on how to spell it. Dyslexia is something where there is no cure and there are no pills that will help. Instead, you just have it.

Now, if circumstance couldn’t get any worse, you are now stuck in a classroom full of ivy ledge go-getters. Yet here you are, already behind and fearing you will fail out of school for thinking you are not smart enough due to your learning disability. At this point, you assume your best solution is to morph into a shadow, to not talk since you already sound foreign, and constantly dread that everyone is going to find out. Especially when the teacher decides to go on an intense humiliation picking spree and will randomly select some poor soul to read out loud. Of course, there will be some students who will want to show off their college level reading skills but, the teacher loves to pick on someone who hasn’t had a turn. Unfortunately, repeating quietly to yourself, “Don’t pick me” magically manifests into being chosen.

Now as the future you, I could lie and say no one finds out and you will never get teased. Instead, I am here to be honest with you and deliver the good and bad news.

First, the bad news:

The fear of randomly being called to read out loud is forever going to be scary, even to this day. The continuous teasing never ends, people will question your intelligence and ask you why you take so long to finish tests. I can also guarantee that someone in the room will always correct the way you mispronounced a word. There will be many late nights making flash cards, rereading chapters, and triple checking your answers on tests to make sure you read the question correctly. It will be increasing frustrating to hear people say they don’t need to study since it’s so easy. When for us, it’s not so simple.

Now for the good news:

I understand the determination to be normal is what truly drives you. But, the older you get, the more you will realize that we are never going to be like everyone else. We simply cannot be and that is because we are not suppose to be. All the hard work you put in trying to be normal actually turns into grit.

Instead of seeing dyslexia as a burden – dyslexia is a hilarious gift because what isn’t funny about saying, “Can I have some antelope?” When you ment to say cantaloup. Eventually, the fear of being wrong doesn’t worry you anymore because we are so use to not being right. Besides, your entire intelligence isn’t based on a multiple choice test. So instead of hiding, we started embracing learning, asking questions and studying because having unique ideas and being naturally curious is what opens doors for you.

So although we are not perfect I promise you one thing for sure: you will never fail. Matter a fact, you will just continue to grow and eventually learn how to really fly.