Small Fish

Today was disappointing.

I knew this realization would come, I just didn’t want to see it and embrace it. I wanted to keep it as far away as possible.

I’m no longer a big fish in a small pond.

I’m an art kid. And in high school, I was one of the few main art kids. I would spend my lunch hour up in the art room. At the end of my senior year, i got the award for “Excellence in Art” and the school bought one of my paintings to hang in a hall. Everyone knew me as the artistic one, and that’s how I knew myself, too. I had worked up to that status.

I was a big fish in a small pond.

Now in college, I’m in art classes with people better than I am. I look at what I’m doing, think it’s pretty good, and then look over at the person next to me and see that my piece looks like an elephant sneezed on it, while theirs looks like a masterpiece and might as well be framed and sold for thousands of dollars. 

I’m no longer known as one of the best at what I do given the selection of people.

I’m just “kind of okay”.

I’m back to being just a small fish in a big pond. 

I’m not used to it, and it makes me really sad.

Have you ever gone through this same kind of thing? How did you deal?