On Failing...

I'm finding it hard to sleep right now so I thought I would lay down what's keeping me up. I'm usually pretty good at falling asleep when I'm restless. I've got a pretty vivid imagination and I usually let a story play out in my mind of something crazy like if I were a professional skateboarder - and the next thing I know, it's morning and I just won gold at the X-Games. But tonight it's my thoughts that are keeping me up.

Looking back at my life, I may have peaked at 8.

When I was 7, I was king. I had the world in my hand and could do whatever I wanted. I had it all, good grades, lots of friends, was a trouble maker but still adored by teachers, got along with everyone and a girl even kissed me square on the mouth. I was seriously King. Well, in second grade we had these multiplication challenges. The goal was to see how high you could get on your multiplication tables. It started out with the 2's so the test had pretty simple questions like 2 x 4 or 2 x 6 and it went up to multiples of 12. So every week we had a short two minute quiz, and during this time there were probably 6 or 8 questions and you had to get a certain number right to pass. Well every time you passed you got a sticker on your desk. So after you passed the first test you got a sticker on your desk with the number 2 on it. These stickers were no joke either. They must have been almost 2 inches in diameter. So the next week, assuming you passed, you get tested on your 3's (3 x 4 etc.) and so on. Well once you got past your 12's they got a littler bit harder. After that you had to learn up to the number you were testing for, for example if you were on your 13's you would need to know 13 x 1 through 13 x 13. If you were on your 15's you would need to know up to 15 x 15 and so on.

After the first few months of this I was beginning to be the runaway winner. I had mastered math as a 7 year old and I was leaving everyone in the dust except my best friend who was only a few behind me. Well, in the end, I got up to my 30's. The last sticker on my desk said 29 and the only reason I didn't get further is because the year had come to an end. I remember looking over and seeing people stuck on their 6's while I was sitting pretty studying my 30's. When I was 7 I could tell you what the answer to 29 x 19 or 29 x 27 was off the top of my head. When I was 7. Everyone was impressed, teachers, students, I can even remember parents marveling at the number of stickers I had on my desk compared to their child. It was a pretty great feeling.

That same year I lost in the spelling bee really early. I remember studying a lot for it and being really disappointed that I lost, especially in such an early round. Well with the year behind me and no math competitions to conquer in third grade, I put all my effort into spelling. I won two spelling bees that year so by the time I was 8 I was no only the best in math but also the best speller. I was also the only third grader invited to join the 4th and 5th graders in Gifted and Talented. I had officially taken over. The world was looking up.

Somewhere over the next decade, I lost it all. Lost my swagger and my drive. I wasn't burnt out, I just got lazy. I went to college and the laziness ensued and perhaps even intensified. Its not that I'm not smart, I'm kind of a genius, but you'd never know it from looking at my transcript. I spent most of middle school and high school in some sort of trouble, or at least as much as you could get into in a small private school. The only difference was that I wasn't adored like I was before. I had a few teachers that saw something in me and who really saw my potential, but for most I was the kid they could blame any class disruption on and kick out of class.

What happened to that 8 year old kid? Why did he leave me? I am sitting here now at 2:43am on a Friday, laying on my bed/couch in my tiny tiny bedroom with no closet, living on a street that has people selling drugs on almost every corner, essentially unemployed in the midst of a depression, wondering how I ended up like this. I'm working on scripts that despite my wildest dreams, have a very slim chance of every landing me any income let alone getting made into anything.

So I was trying to sleep, but I kept thinking that I'm a huge failure. I kept wondering where all the promise went. Where did all that intellect go? I wonder what my second and third grade teachers would think if they saw me now. Would they be disappointed? Would they be as disappointed in my how my life is as I am?

I'm not sure where my life is headed next. It's kind of a long road and I seem to get into these lulls of disappointment and frustration when there seem to be no options ahead of me. I've got some options in the works but I've been known to have terrible luck and wouldn't be surprised if they didn't pan out.

But for some reason I can't shake my optimism. I still dream big. If I know anything, it's that I haven't failed. I'm still here and still working on a screenplay despite the fact that I know that I'm short stacked with long odds against me. I feel that today's closed door is tomorrow's opened window, and that may not really be, but even during this awful depression all over the country, I still see the glass half full. I'm still ready to party.

So here I am. Not exactly where I thought I would be almost 2 decades after my golden years, but I'm still standing and still trying, and I suppose that's something.

Go big.

-M, p, z & shredder