Potential

So I was out riding my bike this morning, just a slow, long (long for me being two hours) ride on the roads northeast of Clear Lake. On my way up Space Center Blvd I spied a side road I had never ridden before�it looked to be in good shape, a smooth surface and not too much traffic from what I could see. I decided I would explore a little, and went down that street.

Well, it turned out to be a very boring trip. Eventually I got to a junior high school tucked on the back end of the road. It was a regular junior high, but was surrounded by tons of track fields, tennis and basketball courts, and sports areas of all kinds. Kind of neat (but unrelated to this post). Anyway, they must have had some kind of Saturday breakfast, because when I rode past the school I caught a whiff of something I hadn�t smelled in years�cafeteria chicken nuggets. Don�t get me wrong, it was a good smell, those chicken nuggets were one of the things I looked forward to at school, back when I was a little kid. As many of you out there know, smell is tied very closely to memory (I think because the smell processors in the brain are right next to the brain�s memory base, but I�m not sure).

Anyway, all these memories came flooding back, memories of Shreve Island Elementary all the way until Youree Drive Middle school. But what had the biggest impact on me were the feelings accompanying those memories. In particular was the feeling of potential. For the first 20 or so years of my life, I felt like I was on the verge of something great, but that feeling was the most acute when I was very young. The gifted/talented teachers would talk all the time about potential, about how kids would have potential in one area or another. It made me wonder what my potential was, what talent I had inside that would one day be realized. Did I have that potential in me? And if I did, what would I do with it? It�s easy when you�re a little kid to think about all the things you can do, all the options you have, because kids don�t have the pressures and responsibilities that adults do.

Now here I am, sitting in my room in Houston, listening to Pink Floyd (The Great Gig in the Sky) with a towel wrapped around my head from my post-ride shower. It hit me like a ton of bricks on my ride today�do I still have potential? Am I still capable of doing something great? What a scary question.

And even more frightening than that, am I of the age now where I�m supposed to be realizing that potential? There is no possible way I can answer that question, not from where I stand right now. The best I can hope for is that, in the split second before I die, I am able to look back on my life and recognize that I did everything I could with the puny power I was born with. All I can do now is my best, personally, academically, athletically�

When I was a kid, I was so cocky, you wouldn�t believe it (unless you�re one of my sisters and witnessed it personally :) I thought I could do anything. And the funny thing is, deep down, I still think that. But somewhere in the last couple of years, I lost some of that confidence I used to have. I don�t know where it went. And it�s scary because it�s not the kind of thing that you can make, it�s not like a test that you take once and it�s over�you have to dig, daily, to find it and never stop.

I really don�t know the point of this post. I guess it is just my own reminder to myself (that I am sharing with you all) to keep working hard, not just on the bike or in school, but with people, with situations, and with feelings. I don�t know what my potential is or if I�ll ever realize it, but if I work hard at everything I�m bound to stumble across that greatness I used to look forward to. Not a public greatness, but a personal one, so I can be the kind of person I�m genuinely proud of.