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I was five years old when I arrived at the self-discovery there was something odd about the little boy I inhabited. I remember the day, the very day I discovered this, I remember where I was standing, and I remember very clearly the feeling.  The playground was full of kids playing or talking or doing those things that all kids do, but I was off by myself, away from the others. I went from group to group and there was no place for me anywhere. It was a scene to be repeated each and every day of my entire scholastic career, from the first grade until graduation.  

The one thing the public school system of South Georgia did for me, other than provide me with my first access to illicit sex and illegal drugs, was to impress upon me that not only was I somehow flawed, and destined to stay that way, but I was also told, from the first grade on, that I could not write. My handwriting, my penmanship, was just left of wretched.  “Chicken Scratch” was what they called it back then.  “Primitive Caveman Writing” is what other students labeled it. My spelling was just as bad if not worse. I got a typewriter for Christmas my senior year in High School, but without some sort of positive feedback, and there wasn’t going to be any of that, I eventually gave up on writing. Now, drinking was something I did really well, and as long as you’ve got beer you’ve got friends.  I was going to be alone, and I was going to drink.  What part of the plan hadn’t worked already?

When I bought a computer back in 1992, it was to learn AutoCAD. It was a top of the line computer, truly fast, with 4MB of RAM and 64K hard drive. It had two floppy disk drives, both the 5.25 and the 3.5. Man, I’m telling you that 386 was a speed demon! The guy who built it for me installed a few programs for me, and one of them was Corel WordPerfect. I almost deleted that one, because, after all, I couldn’t write.

One day, after a very strange meeting between the Chief Of Police of Damascus Georgia, and myself, I sat down to write a letter to a friend. What happened next was I wrote out what had happened, but instead of just the man and myself, I wrote in the specter of Death being there also.  Two people he knew had died the night before, and in a town of two hundred people that’s a lot. I have no idea why I did it. I had no idea what to do with it. But from that point on I tried to write more, and more writing did finally emerge.

You aren’t going to write well at first. You didn’t start running before you learned to crawl, and writing is like that. Your first attempts will be awkward and clumsy, like the first time you try to make love with someone. It’s going to be just as bad as you think it is. Sometimes, it’s going to be a lot worse. Writing isn’t given to those who quit. It isn’t awarded to those unwilling to fail. It isn’t an easy mistress and there will be times you cannot crank out a single sentence.

I joined a small discussion board five years after I got the computer, upgraded to a 486, and started writing online. In debate, I learned even when I was wrong, dead wrong, as long as I wrote better than the next person I would get more positive comments. I quit discussion boards and moved into blogging, and all of a sudden I had total strangers telling me they liked what I wrote.

If you think the nest part of this is leading to where writing cured me of all of ills you would be wrong. As a matter of fact, it changed very little as far as my ability to deal with people in the real world, except for one small thing; I am a writer. What happens as far as the rest of the world goes doesn’t matter as long as I can write. I can deal with the weirdness of the world, and the weirdness of other people, as long as I can sit down at the end of the day and write about it.

I understand why some people cannot live the way I do. I am a Hermit. I’m the ultimate loner out here in the woods with my dogs and my computer.  But if I could go back into time, and talk to that little five year old, and not get arrested for being weird, I would tell him to write. I wouldn’t try to change the person he was, or the person he is.  I would tell him what he is, and who he is, is a gift. I would tell him that if offered the trade, between that life other people live, that normal people life, and the life of someone who can write, it is a trade gladly made, to keep writing.

What I have, whatever it may be, whatever the rest of the world sees as wrong, I see as write.  I have no social skills, no large circle of friends, and I likely never will.  I keep the company of those who write, those who keep the company of their packmates, and the rest of the world, I take little notice of entirely.

Who you are is a gift. What is inside of you is a gift. You have lost nothing, you have been deprived of nothing, you are without nothing, as long as you cherish that gift. There is very little I can think of that has kept me whole and sane, than to realize that within me, is everything I need, and everything I am.

Take Care,

Mike