I used to live in potential. It was how I learned to thrive. To sparkle.
People would meet me. Struggling. With a snotty child at my hip, washing diapers by hand. Making biscuits in the kitchen with camping gear. Sometimes in the dark, because the power was shut off. And they would marvel at how such a girl, a machine of practical survival technique, could talk like this. About Mozart’s Requiem and Balzac, about Liberation Theology and the X-Men. People were always amazed by the fact of my potential. It was a cheap gimmick. My one trick. I was such a hit at cocktail parties.
I used to think I hit my zenith at 10. The age when people constantly commented on how precocious I was. I was kind of an anomaly. For 10. And at 20 and 30? As long as I lived in potential, I was particular and special.
I never had to fail. No one would ever realize I was less than amazing.
When life became less hard, that magic time when I was in a two-income household at last, I still stalled and put off going to college, writing a novel, getting a real job or embarking on some artistic endeavor. I never understood why inertia had me so firmly nailed to the floor.
When I finally went to college, it was community college. Then I transferred to a University close to home. At the end of my B.A., I froze. I loved undergrad. At 34, I was a fervent student. I agonized over proceeding on to graduate school, about trying to reach a level where I could teach. Then I took the LSATs and scored in the 96th percentile. And it convinced me to follow the path where I had proven I still had the stuff to be considered special. I chose the pedestrian route. Furthermore, I stayed close to home again. I didn’t even apply to all the lovely places that my percentile and grades made possible. Big ponds. What if I had to face, at last, that I was a small fish?
I hated it from the start. But it was effortless to maintain a decent GPA, and with a few notable exceptions, I was still the smartest kid in my class. When I left, I felt adrift. Where was I special now?
Ultimately I had to accept – maybe I had hit a plateau at 10. Not in my potential, or my intelligence – in my willingness to learn. Seems I spent all my adulthood proving I was special, and I didn’t feel any more capable than when I was 10. In fact, when I was 10 I firmly believed I could run for president. And be a prima ballerina. At this point, I was afraid to apply to Stanford. At 10 I would have been convinced that only Oxford would do.
Luckily I found this job. The one I was ridiculously overqualified for, but completely clueless about. One thing I know for certain: No one is a natural at group therapy. Or can puzzle out the most effective therapeutic response to a client offering to crack you over the head with your fucking whiteboard. In truth, I’ve spent the last four years just trying not to ruin anyone’s life. Well, permanently. I hear that is the definition of success in my field.
So the way I knew I was different, not living in potential – I learned something from the bottom up. At normal-people increments. And after four years. I totally rule. If I ruin someone’s life, it is intentional. (And they are not my clients, they are the other ones. The ones messing with my clients.)
redzorah 