When I was a kid, I thought I was Hermione Granger.
Not literally, of course. I knew I wasn’t magical, and no owl ever brought my Hogwarts letter. No, I was a regular girl attending public school, but teachers always told me I was smart and full of potential the same way Hogwarts professors called Hermione “the brightest witch her age.” So I started thinking of myself as a muggle Hermione.
I was the first kid in my class who could read, easily finishing picture books on my own in kindergarten while many of my classmates were still learning the alphabet. I got to read speeches at assemblies and I was the designated narrator in all our school plays. My older brother told me his teacher at the time would gush about how smart and precocious I was. He couldn’t wait to teach me, he said. I had so much potential. I didn’t know what that meant, really, but I liked it. It made me feel special.
They moved me into advanced classes, where I gravitated towards reading and writing to the surprise of absolutely no one. I started crafting my own short stories, writing for the school paper and organizing a student magazine with my BFF. I got essays back with notes about how good of a writer I was, already developing my own style and a strong voice. My teachers told me to pursue writing and try to make a career out of it. “You’ve got such potential!”
My value as a person came from my good grades. I was worth something because I was smart. It’s not like anyone sat me down and told me “if you don’t excel at school, you’re a failure!” I came up with that all on my own. I think I fed off the praise of being smart and having that be my defining trait. I wasn’t popular or the pretty girl, but neither was Hermione. She only had two friends and was average looking at best, but she was smart and that made her special. I was smart. That made me special.
A lot of kids like me, kids who had straight As and were in ‘gifted’ programs, had a rude awakening when we entered adulthood. After spending my childhood naturally succeeding and being rewarded for it, anything less felt like a failure. In college, I would break down crying in classes where I was struggling. If I couldn’t get an A, I shut down and stopped trying completely. There were a few courses I only got by on the skin of my teeth, and the kindness of profs who saw I was floundering. The sad thing is I wasn’t even doing that terribly! I just went from being top of the pack to the middle of the herd, but I took it hard.
Even now, I still wrestle with the feeling that I’ve failed somehow. Everyone always said I had so much potential, but what have I done with it? I became a writer, but I’m not as successful as I thought I’d be. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad gig! But it’s not the prestigious career I thought I had coming to me. I mean, Hermione became Minister of Magic! Smart kids weren’t supposed to end up with boring desk jobs.
I feel disappointed in myself a lot. I’ve spent years never feeling like I was good enough, or that I haven’t lived up to all my ‘potential,’ whatever that might’ve been. I’m a gifted kid turned into a mediocre adult — in short, a failure.
I need to learn to be kinder to myself. I need to stop comparing myself to Hermione, stop thinking I failed just because I couldn’t live up to my own unrealistic expectations.
I need to think of myself like I think of Ron Weasley.
Ron wasn’t the chosen one, like Harry, or the smart one, like Hermione. He was just a regular guy who tried his best, had plenty of useful skills but also failures and flaws and setbacks like anyone else. But Ron always kept trying, and even when his insecurities got the best of him, he would eventually apologize, move forward and try to be better. He has always been my favourite character for this exact reason. I love Ron! He’s the most human character in the whole fantastical story. He learns from his mistakes, he makes me laugh, and he is important without having to be the best at everything.
I was never as hard on Ron as I was on myself. I knew he was trying his best, and hey, we can’t all be Hermione.
