What's Normal?

Even further back in my past, when I was just a toddler, I learned to read very early.

Most parenting books and websites will tell you that most children start to read around the age of five. Later bloomers might not even get the hang of it until they’re six or seven.

According to my father, I learned to read shortly after I learned to walk. Just letters, mostly, it wasn’t as though I was putting together full sentences or reading books or anything like that. Mostly it was license plates, because that was what was at eye-level.

I would walk around, reading out the letters even though my diction wasn’t great yet. My diction was never great, actually, and sometimes I still get a bit of a stutter. I had it all through high school, and I was bullied fiercely for it.

No one has an easy time with high school, though, and I remember enough of it that I’m not so worried about it.

I know most people don’t remember their early childhood, either, but I only just recently realized that most people can still name their eighth-grade teacher or their pet’s name from when they were ten, so it’s taken me a while to get a grasp on what’s normal and what isn’t.