April's Wasted Potential

Not just April, but every month before April and every month after April...had and has the potential to be a good month; to be a productive, movement-filled, focused month. Perhaps I should have listened to my teachers when every progress report I ever received told me I wasn't living up to my potential.
"You have great potential, but you're lazy," they said.
And they were right.
And I knew it.
But at the time, it didn't seem worth doing anything about because the areas in which they wanted me to excel were areas I simply didn't care about. Now that statement bears much more weight and I wish I had learned a little more about it when I was in school.
I am still told that I have potential, but I am also told in the same breath that I am wasting it. Hence the reason the words "potential" and "expectations" have become my two least favorite words.
Whatever I do, I want it to be because I knew it was what I had to do.

I suppose now that I have once again discovered this vital piece of the puzzle, I need to put it in its proper place...instead of closing my eyes and throwing it over my shoulder so I can pretend I've lost it and keep myself from having to look at it.

In the end, I am the only one who can really answer my own questions. Every one I speak to and every sight I see is knowledge to be gained...The key is to dwell on it, figure it out, slow down and take a few moments to pick it apart.

Now, to move on and outward, upward and downward all in the same motion. Expand and progress and rediscover some things I have forgotten.

A Summary of Events...

I am tired. I thought that going to the Pan-Ams would be a good vacation...in some ways, it was very much so a vacation; no customer service, no mopping floors, no cleaning bathrooms. But in many other senses...it was not. This complex, multifaceted vastness that is life is so heavy. When I was little, nothing meant quite as much as it does now, but everything was so much more important. With each passing hour, I find that my longing grows...my longing to return to a simpler time when nothing was quite so complicated. But I am not the first or the last to say those words. Which I suppose is an even sadder thought...how many people have lived and died and never felt completely content in this world? A fair many I would guess...

One of these days I'm going to have it all figured out. Idealistic; yes. Possible; yes. As I have said many times  before, I refuse to let society get the best of me. I want the best of me so I can do what I like with it.

The extent of my loss of independence showed itself to me today. I realized that I am a lot less independent than I should be...and I need to do something about it. I am still looking for a second job and am about to step it up a notch. If I am to right the things in my life that have been causing me stress, then I need to have the financial capability to deal with it.

That, and some faith. I never want to forget that it is not the dependence on money that gets me through the day, but the knowledge that I belong to a God who provides for me. After all, were it not for Him, I would be dead.

Hopefully in the days to come I will force myself to sit down and write more, because it is the only time when I can sit and not do much of anything...where my brain can settle, unwind, and remember that life is best taken slowly and in deeply ponderous spoonfuls.