About the Young Writers Project
YWP, an independent nonprofit based in Burlington, Vermont, engages young people to write and use digital media to express themselves with clarity and power and to gain confidence and skills for the workplace and life. YWP publishes about 1,000 students’ work each year here, in newspapers across Vermont, on Vermont Public Radio and in YWP’s monthly digital magazine, The Voice. Since 2006, it has offered young people a place to write, explore and connect online at youngwritersproject.org, which has only one rule: Be respectful. For more information, please contact YWP executive director Geoffrey Gevalt at ggevalt@youngwritersproject.org.
Emily Foster, 13, is an eighth-grade student at Endeavour Middle School in Shelburne. This piece gives an insight into Emily’s world, a place where she occasionally struggles with auditory processing.
The Words
By Emily Foster
‘Never mind.’ ‘It’s not important.’ ‘Don’t worry about it.’ ‘You don’t wanna know.’ ‘Whatever.’
These are “The Words.” The Words people always use on me. The Words are what people say when I don’t quite get what they just said, and they’re too lazy to repeat themselves. Such a chore, having to repeat oneself, for the sake of another. I kind of thought this year they might have changed; they might be able to slow down so I can catch up. But I should have known better.
I should have figured that they wouldn’t. I know everyone has these moments where they don’t catch something someone says and are treated to The Words, and feel like they’re left out. But for most people, those moments pass, and are quickly forgotten, tossed to the side as the person continues in their brisk trot through their day. But for me, that is my day. I process auditory information differently. It’s like the wires running from my ears to my brain are frayed or just plain gone. Like I’m swimming in maple syrup and no one else knows. I hate maple syrup. It’s sticky and makes me feel just gross.
My mom kind of gets it, since she has a similar thing. Apparently hereditary deafness runs in my family. My sister, however, doesn’t have any problems, hearing-wise. We’re about as different as night and day. I would say she was the sun and I was the moon, but I would be lying. She’s a bright kite soaring through the sky and I’m the storm cloud that can’t seem to figure out that my rain is frowned upon.
But if people slowed down a little and repeated themselves once in a while when I ask instead of acting like I’m invisible, then maybe I can figure out how to be a fluffy cumulus over a corn field and they can see me for who I am.
Maybe if they understood that I don’t do well at lunch because of all the noise, then I could skip every once in a while and they would understand why. But I’m afraid if I do, I’ll be looked at as a freak or retarded (I’ve been called that).
I’m not ashamed of who I am and what I can’t do. But I don’t like that people try to make me feel ashamed. I would just like to be at lunch, and laughing with my friends, who I will try my best to keep up with, and who are willing to help me do that. I don’t know if that will happen now or ever, but I’ll do my best to smile and laugh anyway.
And if anyone wants me to repeat myself, I will. I won’t use The Words.
