Realize Your Potential

Posted Up: April 8th, 2004 (written March 22nd, 2004)

"There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." – Leonard Cohen

If we believe that someone loves us - how can we ever worry about how we will get there?

When I say there - I mean that place. That place where you find yourself one day saying - 'this is where I am supposed to be. This is it, there is no more searching - anything else would be death.'

When you find that someone that loves you-you find it easier to believe in yourself.

You find yourself saying – they love me, faults and all and you know what? I'm ok.

As a person with a minor background in Psychology - I find bonding essential.

My special person is my grandmother.

Like many people, my childhood was not perfect. My family would not be found on a 1950's cereal box, much less a modern one. Being contemporary as Natives to my family meant - running water and a color tv. Computers? Library cards? Expresso?

All jokes.

Fabrications of a 'white' world.

Not having these things may have made a slot in my life where I am able to enjoy them more than others. But, that is another story - for another time.

At some point it was critical that my mother leave.

As an adult, I tell myself she was searching for her place in the universe. I tell myself that it was ok.

So she left. She bought a train case and some new shirts. Kissed our heads, and boarded a plane. All she left behind were children with an elderly grandma.

Almost 2 years.

There were holiday cards. No money and little indication of where we fit into her 'life.'

I can't tell you it was an easy adjustment. One day you have a mom - with a sometime father and then bam – a grandma who is doing double duty.

There were many lessons learned.

The most critical one - was that someone believed.

Someone believed that I could do something - big, irrational, silly, or mundane-it didn't matter. All that mattered was that there was someone who said - 'go on - you can do it.'

It mattered that you knew someone was rooting for you - especially when you realize one day you have exactly 36 cents in your bank account and three weeks left in the semester.

All those lessons - they come back. Listen. Be aware of others. Be grateful for the things you are good at and work at the things you are not so good at. Believe that there are things bigger than you and you will find the place where you belong.

So - slowly you do just that. I write this to tell others – realize potential. Realize that being there to tell someone - 'it's ok - keep going' can truly go a long way. Realize that not all things are possible alone. And yes - it is ok to be scared.

Posted on 04 Jun 2006 by Windreamer