This would be me.

Hey there ravenous readers! I’m Susan Robertson, of Wastepaper Prose, and you are On the Scene with Nice and Mean.

I met Jess a few months ago at a book signing and apparently made an impression because she asked me to guest blog while she is away on her honeymoon (where I hope she’s having a blast). I was thrilled when she asked, but I can’t help but wonder if my being here is not a product of a brief lapse in her sanity. Regardless, I am here to fill her super-fabulous blogging shoes.

So far my On the Scene colleagues have brought you tales of niceness and meaness that have warmed your heart, made you laugh and possibly caused your high school PTSD to flare up. My story has less humor to it (my apologies for that upfront) and it’s the first time I’ve shared it publicly. But first you need a little background…

I have malformed digits. Translation: I have nubbins for fingers. The amniotic bands broke and were trapped inside my mother’s womb with me while I was still becoming Susan. They got wrapped around my fingers and toes and caused my birth defect. I never knew there was something wrong until some mean kids (and some who just weren’t very smart) decided to use that birth defect to insult or belittle me.

“What’s wrong with you?” “You’re a freak.” “Is that contagious?” I heard every insult a little kid could come up with and I cried over more than one of them. In high school, it only got worse. Mean girls carried on the trend of calling me a freak. They also called me a “fingerless witch” or at least something that rhymed with it.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that adults tend to say the most idiotic and hurtful things. While working at a bookstore in college I had more than one adult notice my fingers and tell me they would pray for me, as if I hadn’t been living with it for nearly two decades. Perhaps the most hurtful are the people who automatically assume the birth defect is my mother’s fault. “Is your mother an alcoholic?” People can be cruel, even if they don’t mean to be.

An incident with an adult – a teacher – almost drove me away from my passion. She was a keyboarding teacher at my middle school and keyboarding was mandatory. I was more than willing to try, but our first lesson was on “home keys,” and that one lesson started it all. The instant my teacher saw my fingers positioned over those keys, she decided I would be a keyboarding failure.

Using the home keys, your fingers home base on the keyboard, I was horrible at the keyboarding exercises. My words-per-minute count was pitiful. I tried to adapt and use my own method, but I was promptly told that if I couldn’t type properly then I would fail the class.

It wasn’t the first time that I had been told my hands and/or feet would keep me from doing something. But it was the first time it had been reiterated it so many times that I started to believe it. I started to believe that I wouldn’t ever be a writer because writing was all about typing and word counts, right? If my teacher thought I couldn’t succeed, it must have been true.

That was when my parents got involved and called on the principal for help. All I remember about that part was that there were numerous meetings and, when all was said and done, my teacher didn’t say much to me during class. I found out she was under strict orders to let me adapt, and she couldn’t stand to let me type my way. Somedays it looked painful for her to watch me.

Now, nearly 15 years later, I’m an award-winning journalist. I type everyday, using the tried and true method I developed in order to survive keyboarding. Two hands. Four fingers. My index, pinky and thumb on the right, and all the one on the left really does is hit Caps Lock, but it’s involved so I’ll give credit where credit is due. And I fly across the keys, though, admittedly, my speed stemmed from the discovery of instant messanging and not a desperate urge to become the fastest typist in the east.

So the moral of this story is three-fold, and you’ve heard it all before. 1. Believe in yourself because you’re the one who has to want it. 2. Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do something because they may not know how amazing you can be, especially when challenged. 3. Never let off the gas. If you want something, go after it with everything you have in spite of the doubt and negativity around you. Those people, who doubt your ability and spout insults aren’t you, and you are all that matters when it comes to what you want in life.

Leave a comment below and share your tales of  niceness and  meaness. Tomorrow our final guest blogger, young adult author Margie Gelbwasser , will be her to share hers with you, so remember to stop back by!