Perhaps it was the fantasy realms she dwelled in that messed up her brain.
Maybe it was the constant stream of television in front of her eyes.
She didn’t know the real reason, but she knew her mind raced her, and she couldn’t keep up. She sounded crazy. She tried to relay the spew of ideas that crashed from her brain to her mouth, but her tongue was not strong enough; it twisted the words, and they came out in the wrong order.
She knew what she meant, but yet again, her brain won the race and her mouth was lagging, heaving, trying to catch its breath.
She loved to read, and she was good at it, but she hated reading out loud. She would cross her legs, fingers, and toes, hoping her classmates wouldn’t choose her for popcorn reading. The words flew across the page, but if her mouth tried to catch and speak the words, they came out pronounced wrong, and she would skip around; her brain was sighing, trying to slow down. The frustration grew.
A riff between her mouth and brain grew until it resembled a chasm as large as the Grand Canyon. Her brain wanted nothing more than to speed fifty over the speed limit, travel to worlds unknown, and see it all. Her mouth wanted to slow down, take in the sights, and drive under the speed limit.
It is funny because now it’s rare that the girl is not talking. Her mouth still struggles to keep up with her brain, but there is a sturdy bridge over the chasm, a bridge that slowly pulls the two sides closer and closer over time.
She speaks her mind and spews the ideas her brain dreams up. Her brain does its best to slow down for her mouth that is racing to keep up, but her mouth is not so out of breath; it’s getting there, almost as fast as her brain.
She dreams of sharing all of her brain’s dreams. One day the bridge between her mouth and brain will be a bump over smooth connected ground. She won’t stumble over her words, they will come out the way her brain intended them to.
She no longer thinks her mind is messed up, she knows it was not the television or the fantasy realms. It is her, and as she grows, she learns to deal with it, to adapt, and to overcome it. However, she did not have to overcome much. She had to slow down, speed up, and take life as it came. Her brain needed to stay in the present, and her mouth needed to convey the racing thoughts.
