The Weekly Battle


My feet tugged on my legs as they punched the concrete steps. The sound of my feet beating the stairs bounced in the narrow, gray hallway. Maybe the sound was trying to escape; it must have been desperately looking for a window or a door. I couldn’t blame the poor sound. This situation was heavy and tense. The tense air focused around my mother’s hand, which was gripping my shoulder. The tense air covered my hand too, the one griping my chocolate bar. I would have eaten it right there, but it was melting slowly between my sweaty, tense figurers. I wondered if I was gripping the chocolate bar as hard as my mother’s hand sinking into my shoulder. It was like she was prepared to fly away with me I if tried to turn around. I could feel her fingers---or maybe they were talons---digging into the bones and muscles in my shoulder. Though I wasn’t looking at my mother, I knew she was periodically peeking down at my little-seven-year-old scalp. Her face was probably tightly contorted into her I-am-really-not-happy-and-you’re-being-immature face. I got this face more and more ever since I was diagnosed with dyslexia. I guess I was just really immature about it about being dyslexic. This was definitely one of those common moments when she was forcing me to bring a peace offering to a tutor, or occupational therapist, or learning specialist. This time it was the occupational therapist, whose office was up this endless stair case. She was going to receive a sweaty, dripping chocolate bar and a glare from me. Back then, I had no respect for these people: what were they going to tell a seven-year-old? That I couldn’t do math or read? Please…. I had heard it all before. “Your just different, but it’s a good thing” (Why is being taken out of math class everyday a good thing?), “It will get better” (WHEN?) and “Everyone is different in their own way” (Why doesn’t everyone see learning specialist then?). These not-so-reassuring comments seemed to follow me in the halls and even at home.

Oh-no. Now we were only steps away from her hulking door. I wished the stair case really was endless. I would rather have my legs drag me up stairs for hours, hearing the sound try to escape, than open the gray door. But I knew that was not an option. I guess I had to tackle one more session (please no more) with the therapist just like I had to tackle multi-syllable words and three-digit subtraction in the second grade class room.