Key To My Dreams

I was having a good life. Except for a secret I couldn’t share

- Lisa Patterson, Del City, Oklahoma

EXECUTIVE SECRETARY. OFFICE manager. Paralegal. Medical records supervisor.

Slowly I went through the job listings online, slumping more in my seat with each one. I would’ve been thrilled to land any of these jobs. I dreamed of working in an office, where I could dress up instead of wearing a uniform. Where I could be in a position of responsibility.

But that was never going to happen. Something was holding me back. The same thing that had held me back my whole life.

Reading.

It had been a struggle for me as long as I could remember. I did okay with short, basic sentences. But more than that was beyond me. And spelling? What a nightmare! There were so many words I didn’t feel confident writing without looking up. Take that word confident. Or was it confidant? I couldn’t rely on spell-check. Not with the number of words I didn’t know. For these office jobs, they wanted people who were fast. Accurate. Smart. Not me.

Best to stick with the kind of work I knew. I typed “cashier” in the search bar, each letter like a nail in the coffin where my dreams were buried. My previous job had been as a nursing assistant at a hospital. I’d liked working in a health-care setting, helping people. But a confrontation with a difficult patient had left me shaken up and I’d resigned, even though my boss urged me to stay. I was 45 and my life was going nowhere!

Other than my husband and kids, no one knew the difficulty I had reading, and even they didn’t know the extent of it. I’d developed all kinds of tactics to hide my problem, like pretending I’d forgotten my glasses and letting someone else decipher a form for me. But the shame and insecurity weighed on me.

I glared at the job listings on my computer. God, can’t you help me learn to read? I don’t want to be stuck like this! It was a familiar prayer, one I’d asked for years.