I’ll Get It Done

I remember that the hallway was empty. I was grateful; an empty hallway meant nobody I knew would see me through the three panes of glass artfully spaced on the door clearly marked "Special Education/Learning Disabilities." Flanked by my parents, I sat across from people related in varying degrees to the pending subject, namely my yearly IEP evaluation. I was running my hands along the ridge of the used-gum side of the table. Ms. Boeck my case manager said, "Sasha, you are a real success story." She was referring to my grades as well as appreciating my input at the meeting. Telling the adults at the table what I felt I needed as support and what I didn't think was effective or helpful was a big step forward for me. Nevertheless, hearing her words, I remember glancing up at my mom, tears sliding down her cheeks and collecting in the corners of her beaming smile, and I felt a sense of real accomplishment.

I remember when I was seven and had to write a report on basketball. Writing it was so agonizing, so painful, that I actually had less written after an hour-and-a-half of work then I had before I started. That's how bad it was. My parents were doing everything they could to motivate me, but to no avail. At the time, their help was an unwelcome nuisance not because I wanted to go it alone, or because I didn't appreciate it, but because they made me write.

I remember pacing back and forth behind my mom as she sat in front of the pale oak of her desk. On the empty blue ocean of the screen floated my first and only sentence, lonely and started like survivors of a plane crash.

Sasha Letchinger, an Anne Ford Scholarship finalist from 2005, lives by the mantra, "Get it Done," and she has. A twice-exceptional student (diagnosed as both gifted and with LD), he works to inspire his community as well as continue to challenge himself.

I remember words flashing through my mind as I grasped frantically for the right ones. One thought sparked another, pursued until it in turn ignited another. My head was on fire from the inside and I had no way to put it out. When I opened my mouth, all I could get out was a furious jumble of unresolved ideas.

I had nothing.

Finally, in a last ditch of effort, my mom told me that I couldn't leave the room until I had finished. I had my notes, I had my outline, I had my first couple of sentences, My choice was easy.

I slept on the floor.

Lying there, dreaming, looking up and out through the smudged window pane and over the gray and black flecked roof of the playhouse my dad had built, at the flowering magnolia tree bathed in the glow of the yellow streetlamps and the silver light of rising moon, I could never have believed I could write a sentence like this. I could have never believed that I could write an essay like this. I could never have believed that the fire in my head could ever burn its way onto the page.

I remember what it felt like.

The pounding in my heart, the coldness in the back of my neck, the shrieks of frustration in my calves are as real to me now as they were then. I feel them as I write my essay. I feel them every time I write anything, be it a reflection for my AP English class or an article for the school newspaper. But now, when I feel them, I remember myself on the office floor, remember the teacher who believed in me, the mentors who pushed me forward, the books that inspired me and my parents, who made me write. And though I feel the same throbbing numbness each time I sit in front of an empty computer screen, I start with one word, and then another, until I do it. It may take me ten times longer then my classmates, but I do it.


I remember Ms. Boeck reading aloud. I was distracted, bending and unbending a paper clip taken from a sheaf of papers whose contents reviewed and outlined my IEP. I hear some phrases only once or twice a year--executive functioning, time management, organization, written output, auditory processing--but their result, their cumulative affect, shapes my life. Every night, when I sit down to do my homework, I have one phrase hammering itself through my body: "Get It Done." It's always there and always loud, by necessity. I know that I'll get distracted; getting distracted is as inexorably unavoidable as the biting cold of a Chicago winter.

Get It Done means staying up until 2:30 to finish my AP Art History PowerPoint.
Get It Done means waking up at 5:00 to do my Calculus homework.
Get It Done means skipping lunch in order to complete my Physics lab.

I will never wake up one morning with all of my learning disabilities suddenly gone. Get It Done means I have to learn how to accept them and compensate for them.

I will never use my learning disabilities as a cop out. One of my greatest areas of growth has been overcoming a sense of shame I knew about my disabilities. I remember the turning point at the beginning of this school year. I would be in for a difficult year; I had signed up for four AP classes at the behest of my college counselor and at the protest of my parents. By the first week I knew I would eventually miss an assignment and would have to utilize my IEP. I steeled myself and talked with each of my teachers about my LD and my needs. I'm still disinclined to ask for extra time, and I would certainly get more sleep if I used my IEP more often, but achieving on the same level as my peers is a point of pride.

After taking AP Psychology last year I decided I wanted to major in Psychology and obtain a Ph.D. I want to incorporate creative writing as a second major. I've combined the two interests into an independent study where I am researching Twice-Exceptional kids like myself (both gifted and learning-disabled) with my psychology teacher, and will work with my English teacher next semester on short stories based on my research and personal experience. Perhaps I can use writing, one of my greatest challenges, to speak to others who have walked the same path as I do, and a college education will enable me to do that.

I know I like to give back. Since my freshman year I have been tutoring young kids who are struggling in school. Establishing a mentoring relationship with my students at the Brain Boosters program is probably my most important contribution to my community. I value the opportunity to provide a strong, supportive, positive role model for young students whose self-esteem and confidence needs a boost. I've been on the receiving end of a lot of help in my life, and it feels good to be able to make a difference in somebody else's.

I am very close to my grandparents who live two doors down. My grandfather has many of the same learning disabilities as I do. I've spent the past few weeks teaching him how to use the computer and "Google the internet."

I've applied to small liberal art schools where the teachers will interact with me, and where I can get a more individualized education. That's what I need to thrive. I need somebody to notice if I'm lagging behind, somebody to talk to if I need guidance. Being a "success story" with learning disabilities means being able to identify what I need to do my best. In college, I'm expecting a challenge, and I'm expecting to rise to meet that challenge.

I'll Get It Done. I always do.

I can't wait.