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Just when I started feeling good about myself for having accomplished the organization of my hallway closet, an online video slapped me back into reality.
The video was a two-minute clip of a 6-year-old child playing Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 on the piano. Good Lord, when I was 6 I was still trying to control my tantrums and eat my peas. I had no concept of Beethoven and his music, I was still trying to learn the words to “Popeye the Sailor Man.”
I saw another video of a child water-skiing while maintaining the group’s eight-person formation out on the ocean. At that age, I couldn’t have saved my own life had I slipped under the water in the tub, let alone a greater body of water. I still wear water-wings in a pool today, as swimming is not my strong suit and my skills would disappoint even the most patient Red Cross swimming instructor.
I was riding a Big Wheel while struggling to stay on the sidewalk and trying not to burn everything I put into my Easy Bake Oven at a young age. Some tiny and talented children I’m seeing today have accomplished more in their few hours on earth than I have in my 60 years of life – and with no provable, earth-shattering contributions to society, I might add.
I’m still struggling to wake up from nap time while some kids are yodeling The Star-Spangled Banner and riding a unicycle across a close-line. How does that even happen?
My neighbor’s second grader just got chosen for a national talent show for being a mini mathematician. Perhaps I can get the tot over to my house to help me figure out my checkbook balance before the bank just closes my account all together.
Now when I wake up in the mornings I feel defeated before my feet even touch the ground. Planning a dinner meal of macaroni and cheese with chicken seems so trivial as somewhere, some kid is winning an award for creating a five-course French cuisine meal using just three ingredients, while I re-read the instructions on the box of mac and cheese because I forgot how much milk to add.
Where did my talents go wrong? I used to think I was amazing for getting a mustard stain out of a T-shirt and now somehow that seems so stupid.
I’d gladly wear a stained T-shirt if I were able to sing “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen in front of an audience without wetting myself, or happily trade my talent of being able to find that missing sock from the dryer, for being able to recite an entire encyclopedia book on arachnids.
Somehow, I must bring meaning back to my life and if I hear one of my children utter the words, “I can’t” to me just one more time – someone’s goin’ down.
Anngee Quinones-Belian lives in Murphy. She loves humor and believes the world needs more of it. Email her at anngeeq@gmail.com.