Can We Talk 2

Mastering Not

         I'm reading a book called No, I Do Not Want To Join A Book Club. It's the fictional diary of an English woman who is turning 60. She is divorced with a grown son, and is going to be a granny very soon. In it she lists several things she has never mastered, men being one of the "things".

         It rang a bell with me. I never mastered the men thing either. Relationships are like a foreign language. That's another item. I studied French from the fourth grade through my freshman year in college. You'd think I'd be able to hold a conversation with a Frenchman, but no. I never mastered driving a stick shift. I never mastered financial planning or investing or budgeting. I can't swim across a pool; I only float despite lessons.

         I imagine I have a lot of company on some of these. I never mastered the art of baking or interior decorating. I never mastered the guitar, although I spent many hours and years trying. I never mastered fashion or make-up or those girly things. I never mastered gardening, even in flower pots on the porch. I certainly never mastered dieting. I can go almost all day doing the right thing, making the right choices, then duplicate all my day's calories in one swoop in the evening. I'd have to stay up hours on the bicycle to try to even them out to a maintenance level.

         I never mastered maintaining a spotless or nearly spotless home. Add ironing and canning vegetables to the never list. Of course, there are lots of things I haven't mastered that I don't want to do, like hang-gliding, or riding the rapids, or other dare devil things. I don't want to perform surgery, or learn about guns, or solve crimes or do politics. Other people can master those things. I just want to sulk about the simple things I didn't master.