there was a woman called Tady (short for Tardy).
Why? you might ask
Not just because, since middle school, she arrived late to almost everything.
At her bilingual school, the principal would sigh:
“¿Retrasada otra vez?”
“Tardy again?”
The problem?
In Spanish, retrasada doesn’t just mean late, it can also mean slow, dumb, or even retarded, an outdated and hurtful term once used to describe intellectual disabilities.
That word stuck. And it stung.
So she grew up wondering if something was wrong with her.
But her bright spirit, always bubbling beneath the doubt, kept whispering,
“Maybe I’m not broken. Maybe I’m just… different.”
And every time she finished something, brushing her hair, replying to an email, showing up to a meeting, she’d whisper
“Ta-da ahh!”
It became her quiet celebration.
Eventually, some of her sometimes-good friends combined her tardiness with her cheerfulness and gave her the nickname:
Tady.
She was funny.
Wildly creative.
And hopelessly forgetful.
A master of losing keys, missing appointments, starting ten projects and finishing… maybe one.
Her life? A to-do list where nothing got crossed off but everything got doodled on.
While others flowed through life with crisp planners, meal prep, and color-coded calendars,
Tady was setting twelve alarms for a single Zoom call… and still missing it.
Time was her enemy.
Structure? A medieval torture device.
“Normal”? A foreign country she never got a passport for.
She tried.
She really tried.
Vision boards. Productivity journals.
33 apps (all with forgotten passwords).
Sticky notes layered like skyscrapers.
Still…
Late. Distracted.
Daydreaming through the mundane.
Writing poetry during tax prep.
Sketching unicorns during budget meetings.
Singing full musicals while taking a shower.
She wondered, silently:
“Am I broken?”
“Lazy?”
“Too sensitive?”
“Too much?”
She never got tested. Never got a label.
Just tried harder to “be normal.”
To blend. To shrink. To match.
And every time she finished something—anything—
“Ta-da ahh!”
Her quiet act of rebellion. Her whispered gold star.
Then came walking meditation. Because sitting still felt like jail.
Then dancing meditation. Because rhythm made more sense than rules.
Then came crying meditation. Because, let’s be honest, it helped.
And laughing meditation. Because sometimes they’re the same thing.
In her 40s, therapy gave her a new term:
PAS – Persona Altamente Sensible (Highly Sensitive Person).
Lovely. Another label!
Add it to the collection: Empathic. Dreamy. Loving. Chaotic. Behind on laundry.
A heart full of sunsets, a calendar full of maybes.
Until, in her 50s, came a word that finally made sense:
TDAH.
Trastorno por Déficit de Atención e Hiperactividad*
*TDAH is the Spanish acronym for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
A neurodivergent brain.
Not broken—just wired differently.
Not lazy—just not linear.
Not abnormal—just not typical.
So here’s the thing, dear reader:
If you’ve ever called someone “too much,”
Or rolled your eyes when they forgot again,
Or judged their chaos as carelessness
Ask yourself:
What is “normal,” anyway?
A myth? A mold? A measuring stick for who gets to feel okay?
Some brains color inside the lines.
Others scribble galaxies.
The world needs both.
And when someone whispers a quiet, proud
“Ta-da ahh!”
Know this:
You just witnessed their Mount Everest.
Pat Lezama 