Hello Farsight family. I want to share something different with you all.
I left an expensive private college at 15 yrs old illiterate. I knew the beginning of my alphabet but got lost in the middle of it. I could not spell or count or hold numbers in my head. But I could read. I also knew I could process thoughts and feelings and my question was always what’s going on with me when everyone else is finding learning easy? I left school out of embarrassment. Mum said, If you want to live at home you must find a job and pay your way. I knew she was right and I knew I must help. I got up early one morning and decided to walk down the road. I went looking for a job. So as I walked I spoke to myself and said, It’s a beautiful day and someone will give me a job. I was confident but had no idea where I was going. Then my intellect took over and said, what can you do Linda ? I thought I have two good hands and I am young and strong. I can wash and clean and carry stuff. So I went off to a few old age homes local to my home. Every matron at these homes told me they were not looking for cleaners. So I changed my direction of walking and went into a small village. I took a deep breath, cleared my mind and just kept walking. I ended up at the beginning of this village staring across the road at this architecturally designed amazing building. It looked different from all the rest of the buildings in this village. I remember thinking that the design was very unusual and I felt it drawing me towards it. I finally found out what this building was. It was a library. Now think about that for a moment. I went inside this building and immediately fell in love with all the books, the smells, the quietness. I saw an office with a name on the door, it read Mrs Hope Head Librarian. Mrs Hope was in her office. I knocked on her door. She smiled and looked up; she had just hung her phone up. I introduced myself and explained what I was looking for. Mrs Hope said, this is very strange Linda, because I have just hung the phone up and been told, by the city council, there has been a budget set aside for a position within the Library, for a girl Friday. She then asked me, did you pass school Certificate ? My heart sank. I lied to her and said yes and then she said, Great, please start as a full time girl Friday this coming Monday morning. I was so amazed as I walked out of her office and down the road to home but I knew I had lied to her, I didn’t like the feeling so I turned around and went back up the road and into her office. I said to her, excuse me Mrs Hope I didn’t finish my schooling I had lied to you. She looked at me for a short while then said, Linda because you came back and told me the truth please start work on Monday. I was amazed and thanked her so much I literally skipped all the way home to tell my very amazed mother. I ended up working 6 yrs in this library and there were 6 librarians that finally worked out the very first day I started that I was severely dyslexic. I literally messed the library up and it took every librarian extra time to recover the library and open on time.They had a meeting to discuss whether to keep me on and if so how were they going to help me and the extra effort by them to educate me. They all agreed to keep me on. I was told this at morning tea, as I had also ruined their morning tea, I had never made a cup of tea before in my life. Each one of them taught me everything they knew about librarianship and I eventually did everything a Librarian with a university degree could do. I was never able to go to Uni. It wasn't allowed back in those days in NZ without finishing a college pass. But besides that I got to train people wanting to become librarians, and some nights I would run the whole library on my own, help students find information for their thesis and so much more. I got to love information and data. I was asked to leave, eventually, because I got married and pregnant. To show pregnant was not allowed in the workplace. Have you ever heard of a dyslexic librarian ?
Gadzooks
Lol, what splendid a time!
Such lovely people :)
Good on you for going back, Truth is more important than many realise to Life.