Performing up to my potential.

When I was a student the one thing that would piss me off the most on report cards and progress reports was the innocuous statement, "Beth is not performing up to her potential."

Time, maturity and motherhood have tempered my reaction to this phrase a little bit over the years. I see now that my teachers just wanted to inspire and encourage me to do my best. I have also done enough self-evaluation since that time to now know that my reaction also comes from a deep place in my psyche that doesn't like to hear that it could do better and is just being lazy. Truth hurts.

It seems that my life is trying to tell me it is time to live up to my potential now. Some may just call it a mid-life crisis.

As you all know, I turned 40 in March. No big deal, I have been looking forward to my 40s for about two decades now. Seriously, I've spent most of my life wanting to be older and to be someone, somewhere, sometime that I wasn't currently. It is the curse of being the youngest in the family perhaps. But now that I have achieved this distinguished age, I realized that it isn't the years that matter, but what one has done during those years that counts.

Recently Mr. Mess and I were talking with friends of ours about colleges, careers, and our experiences during college. This conversation probably came up because we both have daughters that will be going into high school next year and we are both starting to think seriously about their futures. I never realized how much of my experience I had taken for granted until I shared it with them and got their reactions. I was a good student and always assumed during high school that I would go to college. Because of comments from teachers and my grades I had been encouraged to go to a "big school" and major in something serious. I had also scored really well on both the ACT and SAT tests. I didn't realize just how well until this recent talk with our friend and Mr. Mess mentioned that I scored a 2200 on my SATs and a 28 on my ACTs (I don't know how he remembered this factoid, but he did) and their reaction was a mix of shock and awe. Unfortunately I wasn't really interested in most academic subjects, I wanted to be an actress or do something artistic and creative. Whenever I put these interests out into the world for review by counselors or advisors I would get a distinct, "You are too smart to do something like that, you should do something more important. (read: up to your potential)"

I continued on in my stubbornness because I wanted to "be somebody" and "make something" not just "do something" and "have a career." I applied to college using three criteria; How far away from Marlette, Michigan was it? Did it have a good theater dept., bonus points if anyone famous had attended there? and, Could I get financial aid or afford to attend in some other way without resorting to becoming a stripper?

My final applications went out to; DePaul University, Carnegie-Mellon University, Northwestern University (IL), Indiana University, and Michigan State University. I was accepted by all of them. My final decision came down to the simple fact that the third criteria was the only one that counted when push came to shove and the State of Michigan was willing to give me money to go to an instate college and out of state tuition made all the others so far out of my reach to become impossible even if I did become a stripper.

I attended MSU for a little over four years, graduated with a shiny BS degree in Merchandise Mgt. and found a husband. The degree did little for me but enable me to manage a retail store, which I was already doing full-time by the end of my sophomore year. At 19 years old I was the youngest person ever promoted to manager in the company I worked for at the mall. I worked full-time and also carried full-time credits all through college because I couldn't afford to do it any other way. If I dropped below 12 credits per term I'd lose my Pell Grants and other financial aid. And while those grants and aid paid for my tuition, they didn't pay for my food, clothing and rent. I should have seriously reconsidered that stripping gig.

Fast forward twenty years and it feels like it is about time that I realize some of that untapped potential that I left behind.

I have achieved one life goal. That was to be a wife and mother and to stay home with my children and be a full-time parent. My job here isn't done yet but I can see that it is getting to be time for me to prepare for retirement. The girls are getting more and more independent every year and I have more time to pursue my interests and potential. I have also always wanted to do something that I could share with my children and they could learn and grow and work alongside me.

Over the years I've tried many different money-making, create-to-sell, or teach-others-my-skills, endeavors. But none were very successful or kept my interest for long, or they took away from the time I could give my family and the cost wasn't worth the reward. As far as me "working," the attitude has always been, "Do what ever you want to do that won't cost us more money than it brings in, and won't take you away from the house and family when the rest of us are home." This has resulted in most of my pursuits ending up being little more than hobbies.

Now I feel like it is time for me to either shit or get off the pot. I could just go get a job somewhere. There are TONS of new retail stores opening up within five miles of our home. I could pick and choose my hours, be home when the girls get home from school, and start rebuilding a resume. But I'm too stubborn and have too much "potential" to do something like that. And to me the cost of doing that would not be worth the income it would provide me. I've never been about the income potential (I was a theater and retail mgt. major for heaven's sake!). I want to do something I'm good at, fills a need for others, stimulates my mind and spirit and challenges me. I firmly believe that if you do something with passion, the rewards will follow.

I have an idea for a craft based store/business and am putting this out there into the world so that I will be held accountable for following through with my ideas. I'll fill you in on the details in a later post. Make me follow through. Make me keep you updated on my research and progress. I have the potential to make this work, make me perform up to that potential.