The Genius In Me

Reading Level: Grade 2

One thing I’ve always wished for is the chance to follow my dreams. I have lived my entire life under an enormous amount of pressure. Pressure from my mother to be the absolute best. Pressure from my school to be outstanding at what I do, pressure from myself to be the best life partner on the planet, and pressure from my job to be the best teacher possible. But, none of that is my dream. None of that pressure and expectation helps to feed my passion. Just once in my life, I would like for there to be no pressure on me to do anything else other than what I want to do. Which bring me to my other problem: I don’t know what I want to do.

Growing up in Baltimore, you can imagine that there is little hope that anyone will be able to follow their dreams. In fact, you can consider yourself lucky if you make it to a City job with a decent enough salary where you can pay your ever-rising rent and still have $20 left to buy food at the end of two weeks. But me, I am a dreamer. Always have been… always will be. I have dreamt about being a doctor, a lawyer a teacher, a painter, a singer, a writer, a dancer and anything else my imagination could come up with at the time. I’d like to think it’s because the genius in me is overactive; but really, it’s because I am… lost. Lost, confused and scared all at the same time. I never had any guidance on how to focus my genius. No one ever taught me how to sit still and listen to the voices inside of me as they guide me to what I should do with the rest of my life.

I want to be great; to make an impact on the world… on Baltimore. I look around and all I see is despair. As a teacher, my job is to inspire the inspiration-less: a thankless job to say the least. I want to do it because I love it. I actually do it because I need to feed myself and pay my rent and buy clothes. Yes, teaching is fun and exciting; but, it’s overwhelming and time-consuming and just plain hard on its BEST day. And, if you weren’t born to be a teacher, then teaching is the lifelong career for you. I wasn’t born to be a teacher. It’s cool and all, but it’s not my forever career.

So, what was I born to do? What is the genius that lives in me? Professional liar, maybe???

Honestly, I believe I was born to be a professional liar. You would probably call me a writer. I love to write. For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to write. Write something. Hell, write anything that comes to my mind. For it’s in writing that I am able to truly express myself. Writing is my saving grace. Writing… is my genius. So, that’s what I was born to do. I was born to write.

But, write what? Well, that’s a conversation for another day and another blog…