"Everybody is a genius"...even me

There is a quote by Albert Einstein that I recently found on Pinterest (where else?) that I absolutely love! It says: "Everybody is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." I've decided to embrace this way thinking. Growing up, my greatest insecurity, has been my ditziness. Please note, this can be completely separated from unintelligent, aka dumb.
Now, let's clarify: "ditzy" isn't about not being smart. Over the course of highschool I was in advanced level classes and worked hard for straight A's. From there, I got accepted into one of the top universities in Texas, Texas A&M (Whoop), where I maintained a high GPA and had a great shot at getting accepted into one of the Masters of Occupational Therapy programs in Texas, which can be very competitive to get into, if I hadn't decided to move to Iowa with Michael.  Ditzy is apparently about being just absent-mind or bubbly enough to give your friends enough ammunition to sporadically make fun of you throughout your entire life.

Though I now think of this insecurity as "ditziness", I didn't always. In highschool, my friends made fun of me so incessantly that I thought of my self as stupid. I took more difficult classes and made straight A's and it didn't seem to matter. I didn't get it. Of course, it didn't help that I was always attracted to nerds who I thought would make up for me in the areas that I lacked and the prince charming that I happened to date in high school also happened to have an unrealistically high confidence level and always made mean remarks about my SAT score (c'mon, 1230 is even bad!) and pretty much whatever else he could use to cut me down.

Then in college I started dating Michael. Though he believed in me and always told me how capable I am of achieving whatever I want, he's incredibly brilliant and surrounds himself with people who are equally so, or at least believe themselves to be. These people judge and criticize. To them, I have a pretty face, a nice body, and no thoughts or opinions, at least any that are worth listening to. They haven't seen me when I cook a good meal, or make something beautiful with my hands. They haven't seen me kiss away my students' tears, or rough it in the woods. It's true, I couldn't tell you  every stance each political candidate takes on each topic, anything at all about technology, and I could pretty much go on and on about what I don't know. But I could also go on and on about what these people don't know.

A while back, Michael challenged me to make a new years resolution that I wasn't going to quit on, so I've decided to go back to school, or at the very least, find a better job with higher pay and will allow for some personal growth. I graduated from A&M with a bachelors degree and I've become a pre-school teacher? I haven't exactly risen above anyone who is less-capable than myself, so how would anyone even know what my potential is?...I don't even know what my potential is at this point! Time to spread these wings...