'Cause I try. And I try. And I try. And I try!

Hey, hey, hey.  That's what I say.

My guitar Genevieve and I are trying to get back to practicing regularly.  It's been tough lately not only to fit it into my daily schedule, but the material is tough, too.  Learning how to play guitar at this particular stage in life isn't easy to begin with, but it really did seem to get exponentially harder once I was introduced to "the dreaded F chord."  I also must admit that I haven't been practicing as often or for as long.  'Cause it's hard, y'all!  And because it's so hard, it's not as much fun as it was, so I don't do it as often.  See the cycle?  I also realize that I don't have much talent for this sort of thing.  Then I wonder why I even wanted to try.  And sometimes I want to throw in the towel and scream, Oh forget it!

But that's not who I am.

It is true...my guitar does not gently weep.  No.  Genevieve probably longs to heartily cry out, "Learn how to play already, you soul-sucking open chord-strummer!"  Wow.  I make her sound so mean.  She's not really mean.  I'm hard on myself so maybe I'm the mean one; that does sound like something I'd say to myself.  But what am I comparing myself to?  The radio?  Uh huh.  You bet I am because I know not one average, normal person who plays guitar like an average, normal person.  When I listen to real music, I have no idea how they get the guitar to do most of the things they get it to do.  Yes, my skill level and knowledge are that low.  Can lots of people do that?  Can normal people do that?  I wonder.

My friends don't play so it's not like we get together to work on improving the way we do at Fitness with Friends.  I have no one in my address book to invite to Guitar with Friends.  Bummer.  In an embarrassingly desperate moment, I asked another mom at school to whom I had never before spoken if she played guitar completely believing that she would say yes and we'd become the best of friends jamming in one of our garages.  (I've apparently also become a 14-year-old boy.  Good news--the clothes fit!)  Where am I going with this?  Oh, yes.  Here's the gist of that conversation:

Me:  You're the one with the Beatles sticker on your car, right?
She:  Yeah.
Me:  Hi.  Sara.  So you like the Beatles, huh?
She:  My whole family loves the Beatles.  It's in our blood.
Me:  Nice.  Do you play guitar?
She:  No.  I played the flute in high school and college.

A brief awkward silence follows as I'm thinking, Shit.  I can't jam with a flute.  Now what do I say?

Me:  Oh.  That's cool.

No it's not.  It's a flute.  That helps in no way.  No way at all!

So that didn't go the way I thought it would.  We are most definitely not jamming together.

Recalculating.  Since I have no guitar-playing friends, here's my plan.  For the next week I will buckle down and really commit to practicing these chord changes to F along with the more fun things on Justin's practice schedule.  Those changes take five minutes a day.  Five minutes.  If I do those consistently, in seven days I should average more than 20 changes per minute.  If I don't, then I need to promise myself that instead of getting frustrated, I'll continue to try my best.  There is no deadline and no pressure.  It's supposed to be fun so let it be.  I said let it be.  Ha!