Thinking Inside The Box

My memories of writting as a child are much the same as my memories of writting now and before.  I always have disliked forced free writting and had a serious lack of inspiration for any such task.  Writting has been one of my struggles, but obviously not my biggest problem or the only one I've ever had.  However, everything ties in somewhere and sometimes small problems are just the same as the big ones.

In early elementary school I was secluded into my own isolated place to write unlike the rest of the class because for some reason isolation and cardborad desk walls were supposed to inspire me. I would dread each day when the teacher would decide it was time for us to pull out our journals and free write. I would always have a hard time thinking of something to write about without really having any sort of provokation and so I would try and ask someone for ideas.  I asked friends and the teacher would scold me for bothering others and moved me to a desk in the corner of the classroom and put a specially made cardboard wall around my desk, much like the unfolding posters one used for project backboards in science fairs and such, except that this was actually labeled and sold as a "desk wall".  As one can imagine I was none too happy with this new development and still beyond a rant or two about my inspirational surroundings I still had a severe lack of ideas of things to write about.  So I would ask the teacher to help me think of something to write about and what would the teacher say?  Write down some ideas on a piece of paper.  Well let's see, I can't think of any ideas, so I should write some ideas on a piece of paper.  Unfortunetly I was too young at the time to appreciate the irony of that so there I sat scribbling and grumbling and I'm sure if I had been a cartoon character smoke would've been pouring out my ears and over my desk wall.

Eventually the whole situation became such a rock in the river that I was taken to a doctor and diagnosed with ADHD.  Now first of all at that age any kid could reasonably be passed off as having ADHD, but regardless of weither I was truly in need I was put on ritalin and from second to fifth grades I became much more focused.  By focused of course I mean I became a near mute and anti-social with little more care in life than doing school work and hanging out with the few friends I had left.  Eventually I got fed up with the ritalin and decided to stop taking it.  I began to speak again a little, but got so much positive feeback that I went to the other extreme.

By high school I learned to just grab something and write, often without my true thoughts and emotions behind it, but the assignments got done and that's all my teachers, parents or I ever seemed to care about.  What did I have to show for this accomplishment?  A few lonely and sometimes painful years of my life and a new lifetime struggle against talking too much, at all the wrong times and in general just being annoying.  With too much encouragement and not enough sense to know to shut up I fell in love with expressing myself a bit too much and even when I had nothing to express.

I spent much of high school fighting up hill against this problem and though I still tend to annoy some people even though I like them I've managed to come a long way and I'm happy with how things are now.  Through the years my writting has come to read with more meaning and sometimes I enjoy conveying thoughts through this medium, but in general I still prefer to speak to people even though I run the risk of just bugging them.  I don't enjoy a monolgue with a piece of paper at all compared to speaking with people outside the lines and away from the ink.  Feedback and different people's thoughts are too important to me and too absent in writting, but none the less I've come pretty far with my writting and at least made a little ground in the inspiration department and I'd like to think I've done well with my other problems too.  I had trouble writting and I still do sometimes.  I have trouble with talking too much, but I still work on it.  If there's one thing I've learned it's that it's fine and normal to have problems as long as you make an honest effort to change the things you don't like about yourself.  I'm not perfect or everything I might want to be, though I doubt anyone ever is, but that's fine with me because at least I try and I'll continue to make progress towards the things I want in life.