Learning to spell took 25 years

When I was in school (elementary and high school) I was learning two languages, English and French. I lived in an area that was 98% French and we spoke English at home. I could more easily understand the spelling of French words than I could English words. English words didn’t visually make sense to me, I associated the sound of words with shapes but English had so many “exceptions”. Because I wasn’t doing well on my spelling tests and I always had the least number of stickers on the evaluation board that everyone saw every day I felt like I wasn’t smart. This stayed with me for a very long time until I learned to spell and write when I started a job and got to work with stories, writers and copy editors. This was the best (and most fun) learning I had. I even became an editor after several years of learning on the job. It’s also important to know that I never told anyone about my learning difference or how I felt because of it—I think I would have been less lonely if I could have talked about it!