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I Just Can’t

(A Twenty-Three Year-Old Woman)

I love being with my friends, but they want to go skydiving, and I will hate missing all of the laughing and camaraderie.

Yes, I could ride along, then sit alone when they go up, and feel left out when they come back, but…; and, of course, they will be talking about it for weeks and referring to it for years.

The truth is, I am a scardy cat. When I was young, I would not go down a steep path at the side of our house, and my older sisters called me that, a scardy cat. They were right, too; in fact, I do not like doing anything new, even when it is not scary.

But do my friends listen? Before this talk of skydiving, one of them asked me to take a charcoal-art class with him. I told him No, that my art ability stopped somewhere around kindergarten. He continued to push, and I kept saying, No. I hate art. Every time I have tried, the result was stupid, and I felt embarrassed.

Anyway, so there I was in class, trying to do what the teacher said. The charcoal was messy, and my picture looked nothing like what we were supposed to be doing. I did not want anyone to see it, and then the teacher was looking over my shoulder.

“Stop,” she said, “Stop trying to do it right, and have some fun.”

With great relish, I tore that picture to shreds, started again and stopped trying. Some of the time, I felt like a little kid.

Later, the teacher looked at my picture, and said, “No, it does not look like the one you were copying; it looks exactly like the one you created. I like it.”

Okay, so the class was somewhat fun. All right! I signed up for two other art courses, but that is not the same as jumping out of an airplane from thirteen-thousand feet.

You probably think you know where this is going. You think I let myself be pushed into it, and it ended up being fun. Well, you are wrong.

After much trepidation, I did try it, and it was not fun. It was the most amazing, exhilarating experience of my life.

With great satisfaction, I called my sisters. I did not mention their childhood jeers, but I did tell them what I had done – in detail.

First art, then skydiving; I wondered what else I could not do, so I made a list: 1] I absolutely cannot remember names. Tomorrow, I might see if that store in the mall has a memory book. 2] I am terrible at trying to fix things; I even prefer it when someone else uses the Drano. What would it be like to visit the home-supply store and ask them how to fix the kitchen’s leaky faucet? 3] My thumb is so brown that plants die at my touch. There is a nursery nearby, and maybe I can-.