Once upon a time, I fell in love with Potential. I didn’t see it coming, walking in my barely there way, weary from losing my mother and best friend too soon.
After seventeen years of singleness I was starting to feel like my opportunity for marriage was fading. I’d already soul crushingly talked myself out of being a parent. I figured at my age, a couple years shy of fifty, the likelihood I’d have children were slim. My self talk was a gremlin and not so nice to me, and just as it had claimed the idea of children it was quickly working on erasing the idea of a husband.
A bit on the shy side, it took me awhile to open up to Potential. But, with pursuance I started to bloom, taking on a challenge to get me out of my shell; abandoning my needs for a little unknown fun. I didn’t know what that entailed, but I was tired of being my ho-hum self at this point.
Potential took me to places I’d long forgotten. Places I’d shoved deep down when my heart was broken by others. It’s hard to trust and climb out of despair, sorrow, and sadness when it clings to you like campfire smoke. Potential was a dream and I had many; literally and figuratively.
Potential was opening my eyes to false identities that I’d believed about myself for far too long. Potential took part in debunking the lies I’ve told myself that I am; fighting the fight I’d gave up long ago when the gremlin got too Goliath for me to conquer on my own.
I’m not entirely sure when it happened but at some point in the journey, I fell in love with Potential. Though I wasn’t the one to recognize it first, rather my friends pointing it out. I denied there were any feelings there at all of that sort. We were just friends. But that obviously wasn’t the case since I’m writing about it now.
Potential was an adventure, an experience, a buddy, a daydream (many actually). But was Potential real? Now that I’m slowly waking, was Potential ever more than a pipe dream? I want to think so, but then reality sets in. It’s been there all along, nothing was developing with Potential. Potential was a dream that I fought in my mind, trying to make it a reality, and fighting with God to will it so.
Then as with the pulsating and hard jerk of the rollercoaster it was all over. Potential walked away while I sat in the rollercoaster seat dumfounded.
Potential was fun, a distraction from this weary life. But, Potential wasn’t real. It was a disguise, a mask to what was really happening in the heart. That rollercoaster jerk saved me and I’d like to think Potential too. It made both of us look hard in the mirror at the person staring back.
Dear futures self, don’t fall for Potential. Keep your eyes on Christ where Potential cannot live, there you will find purpose and your hearts desire.
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