The Gifted Child

I was a gifted child. I know that many people have preconceptions about what this means. Often they expect it means that I was gifted in all areas, math, reading, science, and well, not sports. Gifted children are often arrogant and socially awkward. They like “nerdy” things before nerdy things were popular: Lord of the Rings, Star Trek. They often have obsessive interests and can get caught up in their own world to the exclusion of the real world. Gifted children become successful adults. How can they not? After all, they’re brilliant and that’s what success takes, right?

Let me talk a little about what it meant to be gifted from the inside. Being gifted means raising your hand to correct the teacher — not because you think you’re better but because you assume that of course the teacher would appreciate knowing that they made a misstatement and because you don’t want anyone else in class to be confused. I was accused of being the teacher’s pet but teachers often didn’t like me. Also, one thing that I was told over and over again was that I lacked “common sense.” I missed simple, obvious things, perhaps because I was busy staring at the weeds instead of looking at the sky.

Being gifted for me meant that I was physically uncoordinated. It’s hard for me to know how much of this was a lack of interest in the physical world and how much of it was that I wasn’t genetically disposed toward athleticism. I…