I used to be smart.
Like scary smart.
I could read 4 books at once
Recite Shakespeare
I could run the board while watching jeopardy
When my dad would be watching Wheel of Fortune I would just be passing through the room and yell the solution before I got 3 steps away.
I would latch onto a subject and immerse myself completely in it until I had consumed every scrap of knowledge I could lay my hand on then go onto the next.
In High School I wanted to get out of the first 3 hours of my day so on a whim went and took the ASVAB test (Armed Service Vocational Aptitude Battery of tests)
When the results came back and I can still recall this like it was yesterday, the recruiter sat me down and handed me this really big 3 ring binder and said "Young man, with your test results you qualify for every position in this folder"
Then he handed me another "and this one"
And another "and this one"
And 3 more "and all of these"
"You qualify for every job that we have to offer except Jet Fighter pilot and that is just because you wear glasses. You could go into anything even the CIA if you wanted to. Only 1 person in the state scored higher than you."
Did I take him up on his offer?
No of course not.
Why?
Because at the time I was a rebel with issues with authority
In retrospect it was more along the lines of being lazy and dumb probably scared too.
Yeah didn't you know smart people can be dumb?
I just can't plan for the future. The future me is a whole nother person.
One I really have never cared much about.
Anyway getting back on track here
I was intelligent. I was rockin an IQ of around 145 to 147 points.
I didn't realize that I was THAT smart, I just knew I thought different than everyone else.
Yeah I'm bragging a bit here but I can because that was my thing.
I'm not handsome or outgoing or rich but this.
I had this.
Had.
Now it's gone.
You see, a couple of years ago I was trying, for lack of a better term, trying to get my shit together.
I had fallen on some hard times.
Well harder times, my whole life hasn't been a bed of roses at a rock concert.
I was on antidepressants and ADHD meds.
When I was on those I was literally sleeping my life away.
I was sleeping on my lunch at work and then going to bed really early as well as sleeping away at least 1 day of the weekend.
I lost so much of my kids growing up.
Time I can never get back and for that I loathe me,
but that is a separate story all together.
Anyway I pitched the drugs.
Figured I would just deal.
Once they were out of my system I realized that time wasn't all I had lost.
I wasn't as smart as I used to be.
My brain doesn't move as quick as it used to.
Sure I'm older too but the connections are not as sharp and I cannot recall as well as I could.
I used to have an eidetic memory. I could recall a memory so concise that I could walk into the memory and look around and see elements I may have missed.
This memory was really awesome
No one could best me at Trivial Pursuit especially the silver screen edition
(If you haven't figured it out yet I have really squandered my talents)
But now its all been dialed back to dull.
I dont think I can get it back.
