It took me years to realize I even had it. As a child, I thought I could see and read just like everyone else. I didn’t realize that it wasn’t normal to go to eye doctors nearly weekly. I didn’t realize not everyone had to go to separate rooms for school testing. I didn’t realize everyone hadn’t lived with the vision I was born with. No one told me, and no one would for years.

Nystagmus is defined in the dictionary as when one’s eyes make repetitive, uncontrolled movement. Though in some cases, the condition can be brought on by a brain tumor, head injury, or even something as small as overuse of nicotine, I was just born with it. I’ve had it ever since I could remember, and until it was pointed out, I didn’t even realize I had it.

I would be in the restrooms at school with other girls and they’d point it out to me. Some would go as far as to ask me how I got my eyes to shake like that. ‘Shake like what?’ I would think to myself. But regardless, I had low confidence and self esteem even at a young age. So, I would laugh and humor them by saying they just had to move their eyes fast.

Reading was always very difficult for me. Words and letters would fell off the page as I tried to catch them with my sight. Even when I could get my eyes to focus to the best of my ability, my eyes would still shake and jumble the words. In turn, I would stop reading things I needed to, such as assigned books or passages. In elementary school, I would fail countless spelling tests simply because it would be too difficult to study.         

Through most of elementary school, I was bullied for my eyes. I was bullied to my face by the boys, and behind my back by the girls. Very few people had the want to be friends with the girl with the weird eyes. Reading and writing wouldn’t enter my life again for a few years, not positively at least. I swept through elementary school with a barely-there grade making me pass my English assignments.           

Entering intermediate school, I began to get help from a speech therapist at my school. Though my reading had begun to progress, I still had significant problems with pronouncing certain words and sounds due to the years of so much misreading. My problems were with t, s, ch, and sh. It got to the point where I would rarely speak unless spoken to. It hurt too much for me to put myself out there only to be shot down because of conditions I could barely control. I had accepted my fate of isolation at the age of 11.

Though the isolation hurt, it did give me long amounts of free time. Between homework and food, I had hours to kill. That’s when words for once came to save me. I don’t remember the name of the first book that showed up to save my life, all I know is that many soon followed. Authors like Lauren Myracle, Heather Brewer, Meg Cabot, and so many more appeared to show me acceptance I had ached to receive for so long.

Books were my home. They would bring me to far off places, so far from the little town of Keller I dwelled in. Characters became my friends and they paper that their words lay on enveloped me in a soft embrace. They were comfort.

Around my middle school years is when I began to venture into writing. Somehow the paper hugs were no longer enough. Those authors had saved me long enough, it was time I saved myself.it wasn’t until I entered freshman year of high school that I shared my writing with others. I had joined the school newspaper and one of my first articles that I submitted was greatly accepted. The article was over mental illness being stigmatized in Hollywood, such as people romanticizing abusive relationships or suicide. My teacher gave out awards for certain articles close to our Christmas break, and mine won the award for most unique. Mrs. G held a smile as she handed me a bag of gummy bears as my award. She made me love writing.

Newspaper and Creative Writing became my thing very quickly. People loved what I wrote, and my confidence began to rocket sky high. I had even published several short stories on Teen Ink, an online and print teen writing magazine. My insecurities rarely came to the surface anymore. It took me so long to even realize no one had pointed out my shaky eyes in months. It made me feel invincible.

 Years later, I was setting up my dorm room at Midwestern University. I no longer wrote as much as I had in high school, too busy to focus on one story. But one lonely, silent night, I sat down at my desk and tried to conjure up anything to inspire me.           

As if out of thin air, I had it. What better to write about than what made me write in the first place? I stretched my arms, put fingers to keys, and began to type. In mere hours I had written about a short story about a young girl born with an eye condition. I wrote the girl as shy, afraid to make eye contact with others, a girl that kept to herself. But then I wrote the girl living, coming out of her shell. By the end of the story she was happy. I wrote a short story about a girl, and that girl was me.