The Hard Fall from Gifted and Talented

My Life on the D List.

“Iowa man sits at a messy table while holding paint covered pencil and brush” by Alice Achterhof on Unsplash

I am surrounded by savants.

A sixteen year-old sells their first novel in a 12-way auction for six figures. A twenty-three year old wins the Pulitzer Prize and finds out about it while they’re sitting in class. A fourteen year-old uploads a grainy video, and they wind up on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

And on and on and on and on. You can barely swing a Kneazle in the world or on the internet without finding some kid that’s done some insanely amazing thing and has made a name for themselves.

I always thought I was going to be one of those people. Or, more accurately, I knew I had the potential to be one of those people — teachers and mentors had been telling me that forever.

Also, I knew that I had to be one of those people, that it was going to be my way out: my only way of getting to college, getting out of poverty, getting out of my helpless, depressing, and mediocre life.

Spoiler: I didn’t become one of those people. Not even close.

Sometimes, I think of myself as a rocket. In order for a rocket to get into space, it has to reach what’s called escape velocity. That’s the speed it has to be going to counteract the force of gravity pulling it back down. On Earth, escape…