Verbally Impaired

Okay, so here's the deal, I can't tell a story to save my life.

No, no. I don't mean write a story. I could do that forever. I can and have spent several hours of my day doing nothing else. Just writing. It's not like I wrote more slowly than I speak, hence the atrocious grammatical and mechanical errors that have yet to be corrected in this blog. I don't know what it is, but my fingers speak more beautifully than my lips.

Imagine this: a bumbling, bloated, one-legged, no...quarter- legged, hunchbacked giant. It's monstrously large and entirely uncoordinated. Everywhere it goes it leaves destruction in its wake. Not intentionally, not usually. It trips and stumbles as it goes along, but it doesn't mean any harm. It tries to play with the other kids, desperately longs to be a part of the fun, but it can't. There's not even a glimmer of hope for this poor soul. It's running is neither smooth, nor swift, but slow and demented. It's companions fly by with the grace and speed of gazelles, but all it can do is stand and marvel in dumbfounded awe.

Always too slow. Too awkward. Too indirect. Too everything to work, to fit in, to succeed.

Every time, this giant comes to the same conclusion. Maybe I just shouldn't play.

Maybe, they would all have more fun if I did nothing. Maybe I could get closer to their joy if I didn't interrupt their merry making. Maybe they wouldn't mind my presence if I just stayed out of the way and watched. Maybe...

So, the giant gives it a try. But every day, while amusing and entertaining, is another slash at its handicapped spirit. It spends time wishing, dreaming for things it has already given up on doing. Even so, the giant, while sitting alone on the sidelines, conjures the most incredible fantasies. It can see itself, flying over the earth as though it were barely touching the ground at all. Such speed, such skill that its companions could not help but be swept along. Instead of being merely a witness to the creation of happiness, it acts as a herald. When the giant comes, so does the fun. And after all this time, it begins to hope, to wonder, to yearn for another chance. Maybe...maybe this time.

But it is the same every time. Its attempts are met with quiet disdain, or blatant disgust. Its failures bring sidelong glances and indirect mockery. Either no one comments on the sad attempts at freedom, or they respond with an alacrity that stings more than the irrevocable knowledge that curls up, burrowed deeply in the giant's mind.

"You will never be good enough." The voice whispers. "Never cool enough." It coos. "Never enough." It spits.


Such is the fate of the giant. One endless, spiteful circle of under-achievement.