Part of my Problem is Stifling Mediocrity

When I was a child, I really believed I was something special.  It might have been my parents parenting, or my vivid imagination, but I knew that I had qualities that no one else possessed.

Simmering beneath the surface of my being was a genius waiting to get out. I just needed to find the key to and I would unleash my impressive knowledge like a mighty flood unto the world.

I had a chemistry set, it came with a bunch of powdery beads.  I believe it was purchased at Michael's arts and crafts store (the foremost location to purchase chemistry sets). I have no idea what these powders were made out of, I can only assume they were all baking soda.

I would sit on the floor with my powders and my microscope out thinking about what great invention I could cook up.  Taking out my plastic test tubes, eye droppers and plastic tweezers, I would open up the container of chemicals and pick out one bead  VERY CAREFULLY and place it next to another one.  I would then pour liquid on it and wait.  I waited, and waited for the giant explosion to occur.  It never did.

Perhaps science wasn't my thing, maybe my incredible intelligence would come out in some other way.  I tried my hand at a bunch of different things:

pottery (rose art- clay table and clay) 
painting 
sewing 
drawing
wood burning
wood crafting

In one particular instance at the Jewel-Osco, I was playing with the green-twisty ties used to close the plastic bags for vegetables. I had two of them in my hands twirling them around until I rubbed off the green paper and the wire was exposed underneath when all of a sudden, THERE WAS ONLY ONE IN MY HAND.

"Well this is it, I'm magic."
"I possess magical powers."

Everything made so much more sense now.  I had magical powers, and I could make things disappear, at will, no questions asked.

I looked on the floor to see if I had just dropped the twisty tie, I hadn't.  It had vanished.

Understanding the magnitude of this moment, I tried about five more times to replicate the trick, I never did.  I was not magical after all.

Every where I went as a kid there seemed to be children who were able to do something better than me, better than any other child.  I wanted a skill like this.  Anything I tried I was met with the painful realization that there was always someone who could do it better.  This seemed highly improbable as I considered myself better than everyone else.

I was not prepared to deal with the dichotomy of my actual intelligence versus the perceived intelligence I had created in my head.  What the hell is a child supposed to do with the knowledge that they are just about average?

Getting a C in a class just made it more obvious to me that I was indeed, only average. Then I started blaming other people, 'I don't learn that way' or 'I didn't really try' or 'I should have done my homework.'

Filled with bitterness, I ended up a junior in high school sitting there taking the ACT in the gym with my other classmates, miserable at the prospects of being anything like them.

If I wasn't going to be good at sports, or the arts, or be attractive,  AT THE VERY LEAST I COULD HAVE HAD SOME ABOVE AVERAGE INTELLIGENCE.

Again that isn't what I signed up for, I needed very much for people to know that I was special. 

Which is why I became an overachiever. 

If you work long enough on a project, you can imbue that project with an air of artificial intelligence, and if you can do that, you've beat the system. 

Then, if you are lucky, really lucky, you can write blogs at work all day.

Dare to dream.