For once in my life, I wish I were exceptional.
Most of the time I’m content with being me, a one of a kind girl with a sprinkle of talent in those fields where it’s necessary to be absolutely superlative, but today…
I’ve never really seen myself as anything much. What with a family of over-achievers, each of them phenomenal at what they do best, I spent my life feeling that I had to succeed in what I could through nothing but the strength of my own self-sufficiency or be ignored completely. Even with the things I knew I did best I refused most forms of training, believing I was good enough without, a decision I regret very much, now that I’m here. Though I can pick up nearly any instrument and learn the basics of how to play it, there isn’t one in which I excel. Though I can sing, I never learned how to do so properly and often hurt myself trying. Though I’m pretty enough for jazz, I’ll never match up to models or movie stars or ballerinas. Though I can draw, there is always someone better. Though I can write, I rarely finish what I begin, frustrated with whatever attempt I make after reading the work of someone truly great. Though I can act, I know I’ll never be a professional. I spent so much time doing only what was necessary to get by that I never stopped to realize where it would put me.
It isn’t until a rainy day that you realize that you missed out on what was really important. It’s been a long time coming, this realization that the bare minimum leads directly to a dead end. Here I sit, a college graduate with a less-than-average paycheck, working a part-time job in a town whose aspirations lead directly to nowhere, wishing and yearning for a different life. Stupid mistakes, hasty decisions, this is the only place they lead. Usually I can put on a happy face, make everyone believe my life is a-okay, but behind that mask I’m screaming.
Do you ever feel you’ve been completely abandoned? That the friends you once knew don’t really give a damn, that no one wants to hire you because you didn’t try hard enough, that the first plane to anywhere seems like the best idea yet? Does it feel like everything you’re good at means nothing in the Real World? I would give so much to leave the world I know behind, to turn off my phone and go someplace where no one knows me, where they speak a different language, where I can start all over and learn what it means to be myself… But somehow I know that it wouldn’t solve my problems. I’d still be poor, I’d still be lonely, and I still wouldn’t be satisfied.
Yes, I know what will satisfy my thirst to mean something to someone, anyone, and though I know how to get there, it’s a really tough road.
It’s just that sometimes, I wish I were exceptional.
