Malbert's profile

Howdy, here is my sad story.  it has a good ending so hang in there.

Born and raised in San Francisco.  Raised Catholic and went to an all boys school for 8 years. I loved to read and I had a desire to write.

The problem is whenever I wrote them down people/teachers were very critical becuase they simply couldn’t understand it. My handwriting is horrendous.  I continualy misspelled words over and over.  I didn’t realize at the time I had a learning disability (dysgraphia).  I rebelled.  Dropped out of school in the 9th grade and I never went back. Became a street hood/punk rocker and drug abuser.  The thing I loved, truly loved was unavailable to me. Felt like a failure.

Ran the streets and put my family through hell. I wasn’t …

Howdy, here is my sad story.  it has a good ending so hang in there.

Born and raised in San Francisco.  Raised Catholic and went to an all boys school for 8 years. I loved to read and I had a desire to write.

The problem is whenever I wrote them down people/teachers were very critical becuase they simply couldn’t understand it. My handwriting is horrendous.  I continualy misspelled words over and over.  I didn’t realize at the time I had a learning disability (dysgraphia).  I rebelled.  Dropped out of school in the 9th grade and I never went back. Became a street hood/punk rocker and drug abuser.  The thing I loved, truly loved was unavailable to me. Felt like a failure.

Ran the streets and put my family through hell. I wasn’t cruel or stupid so i was an interesting punk/thug.

Eventually dropped back into civilization. Used the lessons I learned on the streets to carve out a career in finance. Funny, I hated math but I forced myself to succeed to please my family.

Secretly I longed to write. Anything.  Well I blew through one job after another. Not very happy with my life and career.  I met and married a terrific woman and we had a wonderful son.  

When he reached the 2nd grade we noticed that he could not write legibly. My god, he had the same problem I had.
Brought back all those memories of feeling inadequate. All those feelings of being seperated from the thing I longed to do. Write.

After doing research we discovered that both of us had the disabilty. What a watershed moment in my life.  I waited till everyone left the room and cried for hours.

My life had been such a struggle. I felt so ashamed of who I was. Maybe just maybe it wasn’t my fault. All those years of being angry at the world and myself.

So I sat down at the old laptop and wrote a 100 page confession. Laid it all out. God, it felt so great to let lose. Maybe now I could find some peace and do what makes me feel whole.  I can accept the misspellings (sorry) and use the computer (spellcheck) to tell my story.

Im writing for the first time in my life. Poetry and stories of being a hood in San Francisco.

OK happy ending.

I am doing something that makes me feel whole. I don’t give a damn about being perfect or even being liked.  I can finaly be me. Flawed but happy.

Dats dat. See you in the funny pages…