The Smartt View

Things I Meant To Do…

I’m 55 years old and there are a lot of things I haven’t done, things I fully intended to do.  I meant to learn how to play the guitar.  People who can play the guitar are always the cool people.  They look cool.  They act cool.  People who know how to play the guitar can reasonably dream of being the opening act for Reba McEntire’s comeback tour.  We all know the truth.  Reba would never hire a chubby 55-year-old woman to do stand-up comedy.  That’s just not the way life works.

I meant to order the Rosetta Stone program and become proficient in a foreign language.  Didn’t you?  Didn’t you watch those commercials and shout loudly, “I could do that!  I could learn Japanese on my lunch hour!”?  Yeah.  Me too.  But I haven’t.  I haven’t learned Japanese or Russian or French.  I used to know Spanish, but I haven’t practiced at all.  My lunch hour Spanish now consists of the phrase, “Can we get more tortilla chips?  Gracias.”

I meant to graduate from college.  I know.  That’s a big ol’ shock for some of you.  You’ve read my books or heard me speak and you just assumed I was a college graduate.  Life is funny like that, huh?   People assume I’m a college graduate because all the normal indicators are there.  My parents are teachers.  My husband is a college professor.  I can spell.  If college had been one big grown-up spelling bee, I can assure you I would have loved every minute.

I always dreamed of a college course where the professor walked in on the first day of class and said, “This class will be all about relationships and stand-up comedy and spelling.”  Yeah.  Take that, engineering folks.  Let’s see where the mathematicians are now.   Just kidding.  I love all of you math folks.  In fact, I fell in love with my college algebra tutor.  Math has been very good to me.  And yes, I’m sure a person can be a brilliant mathematician and a gifted motivational humorist all at the same time.  I mean, I’m 55 and have never met that person.  But I’m also someone who can’t play the guitar or speak Japanese.  So my life experiences are limited.

This December we’ll get all those annual Christmas letters from our highly-accomplished friends.  They’ll write about learning Russian and about their kids’ scholarships to Oxford and Princeton.  They’ll explain about the Mayan ruins they witnessed this summer and the new vacation house they bought outside Denver.  And me?  Well, I’ll write back and say, “We killed the tomatoes and the porch flowers again this year.   I still can’t play the guitar.  But I’m confident this is the year I’ll learn Japanese by listening to Rosetta Stone instruction on the way home from Dollar Tree.”

Actually, I’ll just smile and enjoy reading about their accomplishments from the warmth of our country home on the outskirts of Dresden.  I’ll hug my grown sons and be thankful for the blessing of their friendship.  I’ll kiss my husband and thank God I was so extremely deficient in algebra that I needed a tutor in the summer of ’87.  Yes, there are a lot of things I haven’t yet accomplished and that’s perfectly fine.  Oh, and Reba, if you’re reading this, please call me.

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