Entry 8 — Memoir Shard: The Woman Who Taught Herself

BLOG SERIES: The Twelve Pages of My Own Cheerleader

PAGE 8 — Memoir Shard: The Woman Who Taught Herself

There were minimal books in the house.

And even if there had been, I can’t learn that way.

No money.

No time.

A young family.

A life built on doing, not learning by watching.

But something in me refused to stay uneducated.

Refused to stay small.

Refused to accept that the girl who “failed everything” was the woman I had to remain.

So in 2016–17, I taught myself the basics of computers.

Click by click.

Mistake by mistake.

I learned the basics the world assumed I’d never grasp —

and those basics were it.

The turning point.

The doorway.

The proof that I could learn in my own way, on my own terms.

I built a new literacy out of stubbornness and survival.

I learned to navigate the basics — reading myself, preparing myself for the moment AI arrived and became the teacher on my shoulder, the one I’d always needed, constantly prompting me forward.

No one expected me to know any of it.

No one thought I could.

But I did.

Because I had to.

Because the world was moving, and I was done being left behind.

Self‑teaching wasn’t a hobby.

It was a reclamation.

I was already becoming my own cheerleader — I just didn’t know it yet.

Footnote: Twelve future chapters for a book.