As is evident, I love my blog and the idea of Living Out Loud.

I am only beginning to realize how healthy it has been for me over the years. Writing online has strengthened my identity, my voice, and my need to Live Out Loud.

Early on, we learn to cry out when we need to be heard or are frightened.

Later on – and soon – we are taught that it is dangerous to speak too freely or openly, to be honest, to believe that when we speak out or cry.

We are taught that no one will hear us or care what we say. We learn to fear, to be honest, people tell me all the time they could never reveal as much of themselves as I do on the blog.

The idea frightens people, it was not something anyone ever taught them or encouraged them to do. What if their families see what they write? What if their friends do?

I have never been afraid to speak out loud on my blog, which has given me the strength and incentive and experience to be myself, to Live Out Loud.

We learn to be anxious, to want acceptance, only to play when it is approved, and when other people want to be around us.  We learn to watch what we say.

We learn to be careful. To hide parts of ourselves.

The birds always taught me that my song is important. They sing all the time, and they don’t care if they are heard or not or accepted.

Living Out Loud means shedding all your secrets, thinking lighter.

And I know now that someone will always like what I write and dislike what I write, and call it drivel.

I talked to a friend the other day, she has a blog, but when we talked about our blogs she said she did not believe anyone would want to hear her stories, she has always been afraid to share them or let them live out into the open.

I look at 100 blogs before I decided to start my own. I couldn’t find one that was authentic, that shared a life openly and consistently. I had the same fears anybody had.

Why would people care about my life? How would I handle all of the criticism and hostility of the online world? I bet that a blog about one man’s life could work in an environment that was mostly about things to sell.

I am heard now, and I love being heard and seen and read.  I have taught myself that my stories are important, it is my job to tell them well.

There is great satisfaction in that.

People tell me every day that I am wrong, or they don’t agree, or I make them think sometimes, or I should be more patient with people who annoy me, or that I have too many typos.

Because of my Dyslexia, teachers assumed I was stupid, or worse. I am proud of my typos now; they are brave little warriors; they remind me that other people can never again stop me from Living Out Loud and being who I wish to be.

My Dyslexia shaped my life and gave me strength and heart. To be honest, it also made me edgy, and defensive at times.

But it turned out to be a blessing; I refused to let it be a curse. It made me strong.

An editor named Christy was annoyed recently by some of my typos and presumed to write to me and offer to edit what I write. I answered  simply by saying, “I don’t want an editor, thanks.” Her message seemed pretentious and condescending.

Christy wrote to me, perhaps irritated, she e-mailed me a letter this morning making fun of me for turning her down:

“Good for you, John cats, for not being ambitchious.  If I were writing a blug for just my frinds, I wouldn’t worry about typos or spelling eether!  Nun uv that Counts wen you’ve got interesting things to say!”

I’m sure she thought she was funny, but she conjured up Mrs. McCarthy,  my 4th-grade teacher, who made me stand up in front of my class and be laughed at by her and the other students because I struggled with letters and words and couldn’t read them aloud.

Thank the Lord; I wasn’t tempted to take up her offer.

People with Dyslexia are often mistaken for being dumb and slow to learn, even though they are no smarter or dumber than anyone else.

When you are told that you are stupid, willfulness and determination become important. You forget that writing is about feeling, not grammar.

I swore I would never again let other people define me.

There is help for Dyslexics, and I got some. I learned I could do anything I wanted as a writer just by focusing on a few simple things.

What I learned was to Live Out Loud. I learned how to let people like Christy bounce off me like a pea off of a tank. Sadly, they are everywhere.

What a good turn for such a painful thing. My Dyslexia is not painful anymore; it is just me. I’m not the brightest bulb in the shed, but I’m not stupid either. That was a good thing to learn.

Writing has helped do that for me because it was the very thing I was told I could never do. That’s why I always tell people this about my blog: “you get the good Katz or the bad Katz, but you get the real one.”

Hiring someone to clean out my typos would defile all of that good work, and suggest I was someone other than myself.  My typos remind me to trust myself.

Over time, and writing almost every day, I have come to realize that writing my way towards honesty and sanity, thinking my way back into the world, expressing who I am, in the way I am, comes first, before almost anything else.

I think of Living  Out Loud as being what I do, what I am about.

Like everyone, I want people to like what I write, but I also have to keep the reactions of other people to my writing at bay, at a distance, or my voice can’t make it out into the light and be heard over the din.

Maria has taught me a lot about Living Out Loud.

When she cries, she often laughs at the same time. Crying is just another way for her to speak. She cries no matter who is around, or whether anyone else understands or knows what she is crying about.

She Lives Out Loud.

I know now that for me, Living Out Loud has shown me how to love the world.

And I do.